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What new Celtics owner William Chisholm said about new arena, future of roster
"I want to raise banners. I want to raise them now, and I want to raise them in the future as well."
New Celtics owner Bill Chisholm and former majority owner Wyc Grousbeck chatted with NBC Sports Boston’s Chris Forsberg on Thursday to talk about the sale of the Celtics, Chisholm’s vision for the future, and some of the upcoming challenges for the franchise.
Here are three takeaways from Chisholm and Grousbeck’s interview on NBC Sports Boston.
Remaining competitive
Chisholm and Boston’s new ownership is set to inherit a stacked roster viewed as one of the favorites to win the title in June.
But after the Celtics close out this latest playoff run, some tough decisions might have to be made when it comes to the fiscal commitments on Boston’s payroll.
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While Boston is already set to roll out a hefty $233 million in full roster payroll next season, the Celtics are also projected to incur a whopping $280 million in luxury-tax penalties, resulting in a payroll that will exceed $500 million.
Any payroll clearing $500 million would easily surpass the record-setting $388 million payroll that the 2023-24 Warriors had on their books due to their steep contract payouts and luxury-tax infractions.
While keeping this roster intact in 2025-26 and beyond offers Boston its best chance of securing multiple titles during both Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown’s prime years, it would require Chisholm and this ownership group to pay out over double what their already steep payroll is currently tabbed at.
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As such, Forsberg asked Chisholm if he still has an appetite for remaining competitive in the years ahead, even with the fiscal crunch that might come due to those repeater tax penalties.
“This is the best franchise in any sport, for me, anywhere in the world. It’s just an incredible team and the legacy that comes with that — and frankly, the responsibility, too, I do feel,” Chisholm said, adding: “As Wyc said, I want to raise banners. I want to raise them now, and I want to raise them in the future as well.
Celtics' new ownership
“And I look at what Wyc has done and what Brad [Stevens] has done and Joe [Mazzulla] has done and the time is now. And they’ve also set the team up for the future as well. So that’s part of the reason why we come in here as a new investor group, and we’re partnering with Wyc here because he’s done an amazing job. Why would you change that at this point?”
Even though the Celtics have a majority of their core signed to contracts through 2028, the case could be made that Boston could alleviate some of those tax issues by moving at least one contract this summer.
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As noted by MassLive’s Brian Robb, finding a taker for Jrue Holiday’s contract this offseason wouldn’t just take his $32 million cap hit off the books — it would also reduce Boston’s repeater-tax penalties from $280 million to $68 million.
For Grousbeck, one of the priorities when it came to finding a new owner (beyond a $6.1 billion winning bid), was identifying someone committed to keeping this contention window open.
“This has been my life’s work for a couple decades. Really great people went before. We were watching on “Celtics City” on Max. … These are the people we’re trying to somehow take care of what they built,” Grousbeck said. “And it’s a big responsibility. It’s something that means a lot once you’re in here.
“You realize the Celtics are bigger than yourself and they’re worth caring about and worth trying to move it forward. And so it’s really great to find somebody like Bill and in his group who are going to come in and they want to keep it the same. They want it. They love Brad, they love Joe. They love the team being competitive. He lives for banners. That’s all I ever hear about from Bill is banners, and I just am really excited to welcome him to the family.”
A new arena?
One of the most pressing issues for Chisholm moving forward is potentially developing a new arena for the Celtics.
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“Chisholm is not going to pay $6.1 billion for the Celtics and remain content with being a tenant at TD Garden,” The Boston Globe’s Gary Washburn wrote Thursday. “He most certainly will want to build a basketball arena in Boston. A model for Chisholm is Steve Ballmer, who paid $2 billion for the Clippers in 2014 (boy, those were the days, huh?).”
The Celtics’ current lease at TD Garden is set to run through 2036, which would give Chisholm ample time if Boston’s new ownership group wants develop, construct, and outright own their own venue somewhere in the greater Boston area.
While owning their own arena would open up a sizable new revenue stream for the Celtics, Chisholm didn’t want to get ahead of himself when asked about potentially relocating from Causeway Street.
“No, I really haven’t put much thought into that,” Chisholm said. “I mean, there have been a lot of banners raised in that location that the Celtics are in right now. So that’s a pretty important part of the history. We’ll get to thinking about that. But it’s also a decision that’s down the road.”
The message to the players
While both Grousbeck and Chisholm harped on the messaging to the Celtics’ fan base amid this transition, Grousbeck also acknowledged that he reassured this current roster that there wouldn’t be any growing pains with Chisholm now at the helm.
“I’ve actually talked to Jaylen and Jayson and Joe and Brad, and said, ‘Just so you know, the people who are looking — these finalists, these very small group of finalists — are all great, and they can all do the job, and we won’t let it go to anybody that would fall short of that,’” Grousbeck said. “So I told them, basically, just a few days ago when I saw them all at practice.
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“Just, ‘It’s okay. Don’t put it in your mind. Take it off your mind, if you can. Because we’ve got you — this is going to go fine.’ And that’s what I truly believe. And they said, ‘We trust you.’ I mean, Jayson Tatum literally looked at me and said, ‘I trust you, Wyc. Got it.’”
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