In the wake of the Boston Celtics’ $6.1 billion sale to William Chisholm on Thursday, one of the biggest questions for the new ownership group is whether they’ll look to move out of TD Garden and get their own arena.
The Celtics lease the Garden from the Jacobs family, owners of the Bruins. In theory, having their own arena would be more profitable for the franchise in the long run.
Current Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck, who is expected to remain with the team as governor and work with Chisholm through the 2027-28 season, downplayed the idea of a new arena during his appearance on WEEI’s The Greg Hill Show Friday morning. Listen to the full interview above.
“That’s probably not something I’m even going to get into today, but I will say this: we have a long-term partnership and friendship going back with the Jacobs now 22 years,” Grousbeck said. “It's been really quite something, and we've risen this team to close to the top of the league, like in the top three or four of the whole league, in terms of revenues, based on that lease and that building, because of our fans and because of our team.
“It's not broken over there, and we have a great partnership with the Jacobs. Honestly, there's room for one arena in Boston, not two. Because you need to have concerts and events to fill out the bill. And if we ever talked to the Jacobs, we all decided to renovate the Garden very seriously – there have been huge, hundreds of millions of dollars of renovations. But if we ever decide to do anything, I'm sure we’d do it together and have both teams playing there.”
Jermaine Wiggins followed up by mentioning the Los Angeles Clippers’ new arena, which opened this season after owner Steve Ballmer made it a priority after buying the team in 2014. The Clippers had previously shared an arena with the Lakers and the NHL’s Kings. The new arena, the Intuit Dome, is widely considered the new standard for state-of-the-art, basketball-only arenas.
“I've been to the Clippers’ arena,” Grousbeck said. “I just went out there a couple months ago and watched the Celtics play, right after the fires. And I'm only going to say this in this nice public forum: it's fine. There's no difference. It isn't really any different. And so, I'm just telling you that that doesn't mean you don't want to have – it is a top-notch arena. It's a very nice place.
“And we're going to make, if we stay in the Garden for 50 years, we'll make the Garden continue to have it evolve and all of that, like Fenway does, or we'll build a new one together, or who knows what. But it shouldn't be on everybody's mind. We've got a lease in the Garden until like the 2030s, and we've got a good partnership with them, and we'll both upgrade whatever we need to do to keep the fans happy, because we're fans ourselves.”
The Celtics extended their least with the Garden in 2021 through the 2035-36 season.
Grousbeck also noted that Celtics players spend more time at their practice facility, the Auerbach Center in Brighton, and said he believes that facility is best-in-class in the NBA.
“That place is like the best in the entire NBA. That place is second to none,” Grousbeck said. “They’re five days a week there, and they’re like four hours at the Garden every couple of days. Anyway, people can talk about whatever they want to. The arena is not an issue in any way, and our relationship with the TD Garden is going to continue, and we're all set. So, that is the answer on that, and that's, as they say, final answer.”
Chisholm also downplayed the arena situation in an interview with NBC Sports Boston’s Chris Forsberg on Thursday.
“No, I really haven’t put much thought into that,” Chisholm said. “I mean, there have been a lot of banners raised in that location that the Celtics are in right now. So that’s a pretty important part of the history. We’ll get to thinking about that. But it’s also a decision that’s down the road.”