Who is going to buy the Celtics? The question has been asked since the Boston Basketball Partners consortium announced that it wanted to sell the franchise. This was a few days after the Boston players had just won the franchise's 18th title, against the Mavericks,
Valued at almost five billion dollars (4.7 exactly) according to the latest calculation by Forbes in October 2023, the Celtics will undoubtedly beat the record of the Suns, sold for four billion in February 2023.
So you have to have a big checkbook to buy the 2024 champions. And one name has been coming up in recent weeks: Jeff Bezos, the president of Amazon. Why? Because at the beginning of the summer, there was talk of him selling five billion dollars worth of Amazon shares. The figure and the coincidence got people talking, to the point that even Kevin Garnett reacted to this rumor on Instagram, with a “what if?”…
Celtics owner and NBA broadcaster?
With some $196 billion in personal wealthJeff Bezos, who was the richest man in the world between 2018 and 2021, would obviously have no trouble affording the Celtics…
“In recent days, there has been a buzz, which I believe is legitimate, about Jeff Bezos possibly buying the Celtics, and I think it's possible,” commented on his side the journalist Bill Simmons. “I think he's going to be a buyout candidate. What makes me think it's possible is how does he see the Celtics? What does he want? The only way to look at it is that it's one of the biggest franchises in American sports. That's why we want it.”
There remains one question to be decided, if this were to happen: the obvious one of a conflict of interest – or at least a complicated situation to manage – if the president of Amazon were to become the owner of an NBA franchise, even though Amazon has acquired the NBA TV rights for the period 2025 – 2036?
