Usually when something sounds too good to be true, it is.
And for soon-to-be former Celtics majority owner Wyc Grousbeck, it appears that will be the case.
On Tuesday, ESPN’s Shams Charania and Ramona Shelburne reported Grousbeck will no longer stay on as team governor as part of the Celtics' $6.1 billion sale to Bill Chisholm, as the original plan was to have the 64-year-old stay on in that role through 2028.
According to ESPN, plans have changed, and Chisholm will assume the governor title with a full transfer of power being finalized soon. Grousbeck is expected to retain the CEO title, and be an alternate governor for the franchise.
Reports of the record-setting sale of the NBA’s most decorated franchise came back in March, with the deal to sell the team to a group led by Chisholm reportedly being finalized this month. The deal is still pending approval from the NBA’s board of governors, made up of the league’s 30 team owners.
Chisholm is 56 years old, and is a founder and managing partner at Symphony Technology Group - a private equity firm based in Menlo Park, California. Despite his business being based on the west coast, Chisholm is a local guy who grew up in Georgetown and went to college in New Hampshire. He was a four-year member of the men’s soccer team at Dartmouth, and reportedly has an “encyclopedic knowledge” for Celtics basketball.
Shortly after reports came down of the team being sold to Chisholm in March, he became a fixture courtside at TD Garden, attending nearly every home game with his wife and kids. Anecdotally, Chisholm looked like the type of fan who lives and dies with each possession, even during meaningless regular season games down the stretch. Unless that was showmanship, the passion for his new basketball team seemingly matches his vast knowledge of the team’s history.
As this deal gets closer to being finalized, it puts an end to a bizarre final chapter for Grousbeck as the face of the franchise.
In July of last year, just weeks after the franchise won its NBA-record 18th championship, reports came down of the team shockingly being put up for sale. Reporting from The New York Post in September of last year revealed that Wyc’s father Irv - the true majority stakeholder of the franchise - demanded his son put the team up for sale after a rift between the two about the team’s wild spending in recent years.
According to the Post, after consecutive summers of signing massive contracts to lock up the core of Boston’s championship roster, Irv - who owns around 20% of the team - “balked at funding big losses on the horizon.”
And after months of rumors about potential buyers - with names like Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and the Fenway Sports Group causing a stir - Chisholm emerged victorious.
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