BOSTON (WHDH) - The Celtics majority ownership group plans to sell its stake in the team, the Celtics announced Monday.
The group, led by Wyc Grousbeck, expects to sell a majority interest in the reigning NBA champion franchise by the end of 2024 or early 2025. It plans to sell all its shares by the end of 2028, according to Monday’s announcement.
The Celtics said the group’s controlling family made their decision “after considerable thought and internal discussion.” The family is selling the team for “estate and family planning considerations,” the Celtics said.
Though the Celtics are on sale, and though the majority share may be sold in the coming months, officials said Grousbeck will remain as the Celtics’ Governor until all shares are sold in 2028.
Grousbeck partnered with several other people including Steve Pagliuca to buy the Celtics in 2002.
As the new ownership group closed its deal, Grousbeck said they were “honored to accept this role and begin working with the team and the community to continue the winning tradition of the Celtics on and off the court,” according to a page on the team’s Virtual Vault website.
The Celtics secured their 17th banner in 2008.
Exactly sixteen years later, the Celtics won again, beating the Dallas Mavericks in Game 5 of this year’s NBA Finals.
Grousbeck spoke to 7NEWS during last month’s rolling rally duck boat parade and compared Boston’s 18th NBA Championship celebration to 2008’s triumph.
“I remember 2008,” he said. “This was twice as big, I swear.”
Grousbeck soon looked to the future, saying “It feels like we got more to do.”
“Let’s go get another one,” Grousbeck said.
Grousbeck and Boston Basketball Partners LLC bought the Celtics for $360 million. After two more championships, the team is now worth roughly $5 billion.
“As long as the ownership is good and the team continues to be successful, I don’t see a problem with it,” said Celtics fan Michael Doyle after Monday’s announcement.
“I’m quite devastated, to tell you the truth,” one other fan said. “I mean, after winning the championship, my honest opinion is ‘Why?'”
Beyond banners, Grousbeck was the Celtics’ owner when the team opened the Red Auerbach Center at New Balance World Headquarters in 2018. Overlooking I-90 in Allston, the facility is named for legendary Celtics coach Red Auerbach.
“This will be the foundation as we build the Celtics teams of the future in our relentless quest of Banners 18, 19, and beyond,” Grousbeck said when the Auerbach Center opened, according to another Virtual Vault page.
Grousbeck and the rest of the ownership group also oversaw the team while it built its current core of players.
On the same day the owners announced their plans to sell the Celtics, front office staff inked landmark contracts with Jayson Tatum and Derrick White, handing Tatum a reported five-year supermax deal worth a record $314 million.
White received a four-year extension worth $125.9 million.
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