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By Matt Geagan
/ CBS Boston
BOSTON — The sale of the Boston Celtics will ramp up this week as the first round of bids for the franchise will be submitted by Thursday, Jan. 23. The Celtics are expected to receive at least four bids from investment groups vying to purchase the team, and John Henry and Fenway Sports Group are expected to be in the mix according to one report.
Another report closer to home, however, has said that Fenway Sports Group will not be involved in the bidding for the Celtics.
The Grousbeck family has owned the Celtics since 2002, but announced its intentions to sell the team in July — shortly after the team celebrated the franchise’s 18th NBA title.
Here’s what we know about the sale of the Boston Celtics with the first round of bids expected later this week.
The Celtics are expected to receive at least four and potentially five bids by Thursday, according to Michael Silverman of The Boston Globe. The Grousbeck family expects the sale price to ultimately exceed $6 billion, according to Silverman.
After the first round of bids are received, the Celtics will whittle that group down to two, which should wrap up sometime in February. Then it’ll be on to the final bids, with a new owner expected to be announced within the next few months.
Current Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca and team investor Robert Hale have both expressed interest in buying the team, and Mark Bezos — brother of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and the founding partner of HighPost Capital — expressed some interest early in the process.
It was reported early on that Fenway Sports Group could enter the mix, but that was shot down in other reports. However, Kurt Helin of NBC Sports reported Sunday that John Henry and FSG were “expected to make a bid” on the Celtics. Mass Live’s Chris Cotillo followed up the fury that report created on X on Monday with his own report, saying that Henry and Fenway Sports Group were staying out of the bidding process for the Celtics.
According to an industry source, FSG is not involved in the bidding for the Celtics.
Henry has been looking to add an NBA team to his Fenway Sports Group portfolio — which includes the Boston Red Sox, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Liverpool of the English Premier League — for a few years now, and adding the Celtics would make sense for the Red Sox owner.
It just wouldn’t sit well with Boston fans, who aren’t too pleased with Henry tightening the purse strings with the Red Sox over the last several years. The Celtics are going to be an expensive purchase and team to maintain, with a payroll and luxury tax bill that is expected to exceed $500 million. So it’s easy to understand why Boston fans wouldn’t trust Henry to foot such a massive bill.
While Celtics stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown — plus core players Derrick White, Kristaps Porzingis, and Jrue Holiday — are signed for the foreseeable future, the fear is a new owner like Henry will come in and look to trade off some talent to help reset the books. Red Sox fans saw that play out with Mookie Betts in 2020, and news of a potential Henry ownership has Celtics fans fearing a similar scene playing out on Causeway Street.
The Boston Basketball Partners, led by the Grousbeck family, originally purchased the Celtics in 2002 for $360 million. The Celtics have won two titles during their ownership, first in 2008 and then again last season.
In a shocking development, the Grousbeck family announced plans to sell the team just a few days after the franchise celebrated that 2024 title with a parade through Boston.
The sale is being done in two phases, with the new owner expected to take control of 51 percent of the franchise after the first phase is complete this spring. Wyc Grousbeck hopes to remain as the franchise’s governor through 2028, which is when the complete sale would be finalized and the remaining 49 percent of the team would transfer to the new owners.
Matthew Geagan is a sports producer for CBS Boston. He has been part of the WBZ sports team for nearly 20 years. He moved over to the web in 2012 and has covered all the highs (and a few lows) in Boston sports.
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©2025 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
