Celtics Rumors: Who Is ‘Driving’ Ownership Sale Of Franchise?

It didn’t take a month after the Boston Celtics championship parade for Wyc Grousbeck to send shockwaves to Green Teamers.

Grousbeck announced he would sell his stake in the team, but the controlling group of the franchise, Boston Basketball Partners L.L.C., would remain the owners. There is hope that Steve Pagliuca will win the bidding process to create a seamless transition internally, according to The Boston Globe’s Adam Himmelsbach.

An official statement from Boston Basketball Partners L.L.C. noted the “controlling family of the ownership group” would sell their stake in the team. That seemed to be a much more significant detail than analysts observed after a conversation with his sources, The Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy concluded “that soon-to-be-90-year-old H. Irving Grousbeck is the one driving this sale.” The longtime journalist added that H. Irving’s son Wyc Grousbeck “actually owns a relatively small stake in the franchise.”

H. Irving Grousbeck is the billionaire founder of Continental Cablevision but has not been present with his son at Celtics games. He is still teaching at Stanford Business School but when Shaughnessy asked the elder Grousbeck for comment, he declined.

The upcoming NBA media deal could be of interest to the Grousbeck family, but while the Celtics are going all-in by re-signing their core players, the penalties in the future will be significant if Boston chooses to retain its players for multiple seasons. That could be a reason why the Grousbeck group is choosing to back out now after the franchise won Banner 18.

Boston’s statement noted that while the sale of majority interest will happen this year or early next year, Grousbeck will remain team governor until 2028.