A family dispute over the Celtics’ payroll is behind Wyc Grousbeck’s decision to put most of the team’s stock up for sale, sources say Josh Kosman and Brian Lewis of the New York Post.
Irving Grousbeck, 90, controls about 20% of the franchise and is unwilling to absorb the expected financial losses that will be needed to keep the team in the title race, according to Kosman. After winning the championship in June, Boston handed out several new contracts that bring the total cost of the list for the 2025/26 season to about $500 million in salaries and tax payments. “That’s what happens when dad puts up most of the money,” a source told Kosman.
Kosman cites another source close to the sale process who says the team is expected to lose about $80 million this season. This amount will be much higher next season, when the tax penalties for repeat offenders will become more severe. The Celtics gave Jaylen Brown a record contract last summer, then added a five-year, $314 million supermax extension for Jayson Tatum in July. Jrue Holiday also received an extension and several players were re-signed, pushing the team’s total payroll over $225 million and setting a projected luxury tax payment of $280 million.
“Wyc says we’ll spend whatever it takes, but dad wasn’t one to lose money,” Kosman told another source, who heard the team barely made it last season while winning its 18th title in the NBA. The Grousbeck family said they were getting rid of their share of the team for “estate planning reasons” when the surprise announcement was made in early July. Wyc Grousbeck confirmed this position in a statement to Kosman.
“The Grousbeck family is selling the team for reasons of succession and family planning. “To say that the sale is in any way associated with a loss is completely false,” he said. “There has not been a capital call from the owners, or any additional investment of any kind, in the 22 years since Boston Basketball Partners purchased the team, and we do not anticipate that there ever will be.”
The NBA hopes the Celtics will be valued at a record $6 billion in sales, but there are complications in reaching that figure. Sources told Kosman that the team’s expected losses and the fact that it does not own TD Garden to generate revenue from other events could make potential buyers reluctant to make such high offers. The Grousbecks hope to sell a 51% stake later this year or early 2025, then continue to manage the team until the entire sale is completed in 2028.
There has been little movement toward a sale in the two and a half months since Grousbecks announced the team was available, according to Adam Himmelsbach of the Boston Globe. Banks involved in the transaction are still reviewing the team’s assets and liabilities to provide an accurate report to interested buyers, which Himmelsbach said is typical for this type of transaction.