The Boston Celtics, one of the most legendary franchises in NBA history, are for sale.
Owner Wyc Grousbeck has made public his intention to sell the franchise and there are already several suitors who have shown their interest in buying the team, even though the price would be around $6 billion.
Despite such a high valuation, there is no shortage of suitors, and the most illustrious is billionaire Jeff Bezos, owner and founder of Amazon, who would be willing to pay that figure to become the new owner of the Massachusetts team.
That’s according to Bill Simmons, one of the most prestigious analysts of American sports in general, and the NBA in particular.
“In the last few days there’s been some I think legitimate buzz about Jeff Bezos buying the Celtics, and I think it’s real. I think he’s gonna be one of the suitors,” Simmons said.
The third richest man on the planet
Money would not be a problem for Bezos, whose personal fortune is estimated at about $194.7 billion, the third largest on the planet after Bernard Arnault ($233 billion) and Elon Musk ($195 billion). But the main obstacle to his purchase would be potential incompatibility, as Amazon has just signed the first exclusive NBA game broadcasting deal as part of the new media rights negotiation.
If Bezos buys the Celtics as an individual owner, he could keep the Celtics business separate from Amazon, though it’s unclear how NBA rules would treat having the owner of one of its broadcast partners also own a team. Or whether other franchise owners will view it favorably because of the logical suspicions that could arise if such a hypothetical buyout were to materialize.
Celtics operational problems
It’s been a long time since there has been a bigger sale of an NBA team, although the Celtics do have operational issues, such as the fact that they don’t own TD Garden. That would be a headache for many would-be new owners, but not for someone with as much money as Bezos, capable of getting rid of many of those problems.
Simmons further revealed in his podcast that the NBA expects a $6 billion price tag to be imposed on the Celtics, the same price they want to charge interested parties when NBA expansion franchises in Las Vegas and Seattle become available.
“The league wants $6 billion for the team, for the Celtics. They don’t own their arena. It’s a crazy price, but they’ll probably get it. They want the $6 billion, the same figure they would ask for the new expansion teams in Seattle and Las Vegas, and probably Mexico City, which is shaping up to be a third team,” he said.
According to the same source, all these transactions would result in a very juicy extra profit for all the franchises in the competition, which would share the pie: “They want to get $6 billion for each of the two franchises for expansion, which would mean a $400 million check for each NBA owner, all 30 of them. So they are trying to establish that price for this Celtics team.
The price tag for the Hornets and Mavs sales
There were two major franchise sales last offseason, starting with Michael Jordan selling his majority stake in the Charlotte Hornets for a valuation of $3 billion, a great value for a bottom-of-the-table franchise.
And Mark Cuban sold a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks at a discounted valuation of $3.5 billion. Cuban also retains a minority stake and power within the organization, so the price was well below the initial valuation of more than $4 billion.
