{"id":67084,"date":"2025-08-14T07:34:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T07:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/67084\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T07:34:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T07:34:08","slug":"nba-approves-celtics-sale-to-chisholm-group-in-6-1b-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/67084\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA approves Celtics sale to Chisholm group in $6.1B deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOSTON — The NBA board of governors on Wednesday unanimously approved the sale of the Boston Celtics<\/a> to a group led by private equity mogul Bill Chisholm, a deal that values the franchise at $6.1 billion.<\/p>\n

The league said the transaction was expected to close shortly. When it does, Chisholm will take ownership of at least 51% of the team, with full control coming by 2028 at a price that could bring the total value to $7.3 billion.<\/p>\n

It is the largest price ever paid for an American professional sports team, although Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> owner Mark Walter has agreed to buy a controlling share of the Lakers<\/a> in a deal that would put the value of the entire franchise at $10 billion. It’s not clear how much Walter would own; current owner Jeanie Buss is expected to retain at least 15% of the team.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

1 Related<\/p>\n

The previous record for a U.S. sports franchise was the $6.05 billion paid for the NFL’s Washington Commanders<\/a> in 2023. The record price for an NBA team was the $4 billion Mat Ishbia, a mortgage firm owner, paid for the Phoenix Suns<\/a> in 2023.<\/p>\n

A Massachusetts native and graduate of Dartmouth College and Penn’s Wharton School of business, Chisholm is the managing partner of California-based Symphony Technology Group. The new ownership group also includes Boston businessmen Rob Hale, who is a current Celtics shareholder, and Bruce Beal Jr.<\/p>\n

Wyc Grousbeck led the ownership group that bought the team in 2002 for $360 million and presided over NBA championships in 2008 and 2024. The franchise’s 18 NBA titles are a league record.<\/p>\n

Chisholm outbid at least two other groups, one led by previous Celtics minority partner Steve Pagliuca. Pagliuca has since announced plans to buy the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun for $325 million and move the team to Boston, but the sale and potential relocation are subject to approval by the WNBA board of governors.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON — The NBA board of governors on Wednesday unanimously approved the sale of the Boston Celtics to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-67084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}