Sale of Celtics finalized to wicked awesome lifelong C's fan

One storyline lingering over the Celtics since last year’s championship was the stated goal of then-owners, the Grousbeck family, to sell the team. This was freaky. The Celtics, after years of coming painfully close, finally took home the championship last year. They seemed well set to be extremely good for a long time. They just had to not screw things up. You know, make big changes.

It’s been said by people smarter than I that the biggest advantage in sports is a good owner. They will pay what’s needed, not be too involved in strategic decisions, and basically give those who have the expertise and talent the autonomy to do what they do best. Investment and trust versus micromanaging and being that one unnecessary cook in the kitchen.

You don’t know what bechamel is. Get out and let the cooks cook.

Unfortunately, their payroll is, uh, massive. Like, assembled from the kind of contracts you give out when you don’t expect to be the one to pick up the bill. As the fictional Bill Gates in that one Simpsons episode stated, “I didn’t get rich by writing a bunch of checks.”

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I’m a Celtics fan. I dye my own beer green. Should I be worried?

Well, if you’re looking for positive signs, you have one very important one. As stated by Adam Himmelsbach when breaking the news, the new owner, William Chisholm, is a lifelong Celtics fan. Here’s Adam saying it:

One would hope that long-time fandom will lead him to make decisions based primarily on the Celtics’ success as a professional basketball team rather than this being a $6.1 billion strategic business investment. He’s seen Celtic success. He knows what it looks like. He has a model to follow.

Unfortunately, most of Chisholm’s money comes from his private equity firm. I’m sure you’ve heard about private equity. They are the forces that purchase popular brands, hollow out their assets, and put a Faberge egg of a business out into the world only to later throw their hands up at the business’ failure saying “who could have seen this coming?” while taking a hefty tax write off with a sickening sense of contentment.

This is the most expensive sports franchise sale in the history of U.S. sports. And, generally, the more money you have, the worse of a person you are. You don’t get rich by writing a bunch of checks.

So it remains to be seen how this goes. If you had to pick from the mug shots and records of various billionaires, William Chisholm seems like the kind of guy you would feel safest with.

Let’s just hope for the best. Unless you’re not a Celtics fan. If you want to see the Celtics fail, new owner syndrome and a private equity mindset are your friends.

¯\(°_o)/¯