Celtics Insider Gives Thoughts on Team Sale

The news of the Boston Celtics going up for sale is over a month old but it is still one of the biggest talking points surrounding the team.

The list of potential buyers is long and there are rumors that the team could go public.

Jared Weiss, a staff writer for The Athletic covering the Celtics, gave his thoughts on the situation in a mailbag article.

Weiss talked about the potential of the Celtics going public.

While there aren’t any NBA teams that are specifically publicly traded entities, the Toronto Raptors and New York Knicks are both owned by corporations. Washington Wizards owner Ted Leonsis has also said he views his Monumental Sports & Entertainment as a “pre-IPO” company, though he did not say he wants to go public. The trend seems to be ownership groups making their franchise an asset for a larger corporation so they can expand into other media, real estate and entertainment properties. The exception is the Raptors, as publicly traded telecom companies Rogers Communications and BCE own the majority of the franchise.

Weiss brought attention to one thing that could prevent the Celtics from being publicly traded.

The NBA limits sovereign wealth funds to a 20 percent stake in a franchise. A key part of these investments is the stadium rights, but TD Garden is owned by the Boston Bruins. The NHL team’s CEO Charlie Jacobs said on WEEI’s “The Gresh and Fauria Show” Tuesday that the Celtics have signed a lease with TD Garden for another 12 years. Without the real estate asset, it may be more challenging to make the Celtics the center point of a publicly traded company. But that all depends on who buys them and how the Celtics could fit into their portfolio.

More details on the future of the Celtics' ownership status is expected to become public as the season gets closer.