On Tuesday, WEEI’s Meghan Ottolini was joined by NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Reuben Frank to discuss the recent rumor floated by The Ringer’s Bill Simmons - that Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie is among the final bidders to purchase a majority share of the Boston Celtics.
Frank, who has been covering the Eagles since the middle of the 1987 regular season, has institutional knowledge of Lurie’s organization, having been there since day one of Lurie’s Eagles ownership in 1994.
Frank joined Mego on her podcast “Slammed: A Boston Basketball Podcast,” co-hosted by WEEI’s Justin Turpin and WGBH’s Esteban Bustillos.
Here’s a summary of the key topics from their conversation:
Lurie’s interest in owning the Celtics is not surprising, given his ties to the city as well as a recent sale of a minority stake in the Eagles:
“I wouldn’t say it’s a shock because, you know, he grew up in Boston and went to school there. He’s got really strong ties. I remember him pointing out his season ticket seats in Schaefer Stadium to me before a game once. So, he’s always been a huge Celtics fan, a huge Boston sports fan, an obsessive Boston sports fan - I don’t know if there’s any other kind.
“A couple months ago, he sold a chunk of the franchise - 8% share, with an $8.3 billion valuation. Came out to about $660 million. We didn’t really know why he was trying to raise cash, but you kind of jump to conclusions, and it could have something to do with a bid for the Celtics.”
“...He bid on the Patriots in 1993 [before] he bought the Eagles. So he’s always had interest in that market and those teams, and he’s always been very close to them.”
Two schools of thought from Frank on how hands-on Lurie would be as an owner in Boston:
“The one thing that surprises me is that he’s a 77 year old guy now, he’s not a young kid. Now, he’s been grooming his son Julian to take over the Eagles at some point, which we anticipate. But it is a little surprising that at his age - like, I don’t anticipate if he did, or if a group that he leads did buy the Celtics, that he would be as much of a day-to-day-type owner as he has been here for the last 30 years.”
“...My biggest question is - you know, he’s such a hands-on owner here. He lives here. He’s in Florida frequently, but he’s here a lot of the time. You can’t be in two places at once, and I’m not sure how hands-on an owner you can be with two teams at the same time. And he really prides himself on being in his office. We see his car out in front of the NovaCare Complex, you know, 2-3-4 times a week. We see him in the hallways, we see him at practice. You can’t do that with two teams. So I don’t know how different his day-to-day responsibilities would be if he did own both teams. Or maybe buying the Celtics would coincide with handing the team over to his son - that just kind of occurred to me…
“...Julian’s been, officially, with the team since 2021, I think, and doing a variety of different things. And he’s worked in, you know, with the scouts and with ticket sales and with every department to get experience about the whole franchise. So, yeah - Jeffrey might think that Julian’s ready to take over, and [he’d] move up to Boston and keep an eye on that franchise. Just speculating, but the timing could work out that way.”
Lurie has shown throughout his 30+ year of Eagles ownership that he is the ultimate decision maker when it comes to financial decisions surrounding the organization:
“It’s him. He’s the one. And, you know, he’s always been a - they have minority owners, but he holds total control of the organization. And that’s been made clear at every step. Whenever he’s taken on a minority owner or sold a chunk of the team, it’s been made clear that he still operates the franchise, nobody else does. So it’s him. He’s making the decisions, and he’s certainly a guy that is collaborative and trusts the people around him, and has people that he’s very careful to pick to surround him, but he makes the calls and it’s always been that way.”
Lurie evolved as an owner - once seen as a meddling outsider on football decisions, and later becoming an owner that allowed football people to make football decisions:
“I think when he first bought the team, he was kind of seen as an outsider. I mean, obviously, Philadelphia sports fans aren’t enamored of Boston, people from New England, and it’s just the way it’s always been, and I’m sure it works both ways. So it took him a while to really, kind of, win people over.
“He was seen, in his early years, as a meddler in draft stuff, in personnel stuff, and there might have been some truth to that early on. I think he learned once Andy Reid came here in ’99, he kind of learned to stay out of the way of that stuff and leave it to the experts. Which, look - he’s still involved, you see him in the draft room talking to the scouts and everything. But I think it took him a while to really win over the Philadelphia sports fan, really probably over the last 10-12 years when they started going to Super Bowls somewhat frequently, although it might not seem like frequently to people in New England when it’s kind of an annual thing.”
“...But I think he really did win people over, it just took quite a while, till he wasn’t seen as an outsider and an interloper in Philadelphia.”
While being a hands-on owner with the Eagles, he’s not the type of owner who often speaks on the record with the media - something current Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck does with regularity:
“I think he’s super hands-on, [but] he doesn’t talk to the media very often, at least not on the record. You know, we talk on the sidelines of practice. He’s a big music guy. You know, Jeff Lurie produced that ‘Summer of Soul’ movie about the 1969 R&B concert in Harlem, New York with his production company, and they have a movie coming out, I think, this year on the life of Billy Preston, the great keyboard players for The Beatles and The Stones and all that. So that kind of gives everybody a little common ground to talk to him about [music] without talking about football. But really, other than the owners meetings, he really doesn’t talk to us on the record.
“We’ll see him on [Super Bowl] Media Day on Monday - but yeah we’ll see him down there and he’ll talk to us. But he’s not super - he’s not like Jerry Jones who talks every week after games. He leaves that stuff to the GM and the coaches.”
Lurie would not be involved in the Celtics bidding process unless he was actually serious about wanting to buy the team. And if he’s involved, it means he definitely has the money to afford it:
“I mean, without knowing what’s in his checking account right now, exactly, it’s hard to tell. I mean, the Eagles are valued at over, you know, $8 billion. He’s obviously a really wealthy guy. I don’t know what goes into owning multiple pro sports franchises. Obviously the Eagles have been incredibly profitable. He bought the team for $185 million, they’re now worth $8.3 billion. So he’s made a few dollars with the investment. It’s a great question, and I’m sure that’s something that the NBA is going to investigate really thoroughly if his bid is accepted, and they have to decide whether he can do it and he can handle it and he has the cash.
“He’s the kind of guy who’s not going to go into something without being 100% prepared with the financials and having every number scrutinized by his money people. It’s just not his way. So I’m assuming that he’s more than capable of doing this financially. I would guess he’s got people already in mind if this does happen.”
“...I mean, Jeff Lurie doesn’t go into any project if he’s not 100% convinced it’s gonna work, it’s gonna make sense, it’s gonna make money.”
Building his own team-controlled stadium for the Eagles after purchasing the team in 1994 was a priority, and believes it’s something Lurie would want with the Celtics:
“I do know building a stadium that the team controlled was a priority from the day he bought the franchise till they built ‘The Link.’ I can’t imagine that’s not on his mind, but not a lot of open space in Boston to build a basketball arena. So yeah, I don’t know how people in the city would feel about having an arena out in the suburbs like some teams do. And my brother lives up in Boston, and just takes a train to North Station and walks over to the [Garden], I know a lot of people do that.
“I can’t imagine the Celtics playing outside Boston. It’s really hard to picture that, and it’s hard to picture finding a place to build a new arena within the city. Or maybe it’s possible, it’s a great question. I’m sure all things being equal, he’d rather control the arena. I don’t know how practical that is.”
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