There’s a new name in the Celtics ownership race
The race to own the Boston Celtics has become real.
Last week saw potential owners come through with their first round of bids, and there’s an unexpected and local name reportedly in the mix with Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie apparently among the finalists, according to The Ringer’s Bill Simmons.
“It was their first round of buyers [and] they had to cut down their prospective buyers,” Simmons said on the latest episode of his podcast. “Four or five people made the first round. One of the people was the Eagles owner, Jeffrey Lurie, who is apparently from Massachusetts. There’s been a couple of ‘Hmm, I wonder who these guys are?’ There are a couple I couldn’t figure out but that’s one.”
As Simmons alluded to, the 73-year-old Lurie is indeed a Boston native, and did all of his schooling through Massachusetts, having gone to Worcester’s Clark University, Brandeis University in Waltham, and also Boston University. Lurie and his family also had season tickets to the Patriots, and Lurie tried to buy the Patriots (but was outbid by Robert Kraft) before buying the Eagles a year later back in 1994.
“I was obsessed with the Pats,” Lurie told the Boston Globe’s Ben Volin back in 2023. “I was at virtually every single game in the stands for, I don’t know, 20-30 years. I was an obsessed NFL fan and Patriots fan, but quickly lost that when I bought the Eagles.”
And as it relates to the Celtics, Lurie’s fandom has never been in doubt.
Most recently, Lurie was in Boston for Game 1 of the 2024 NBA Finals.
He’s also spoken about his love for the Celtics multiple times throughout his tenure as the owner of the Eagles, and told stories about waiting outside stores at the Auburn Mall to make sure he got Celtics playoff tickets in a profile written by Clark University’s ClarkNow back in 2018.
Lurie even ‘borrows’ some managerial techniques from Celtics legend Red Auerbach.
“I’ve always thought that the sports franchises that make decisions based on what they think is right, it’s never going to be the popular one in that case,” Lurie said in a separate interview two years ago. “I go back to Red Auerbach, because to me, he made a lot of decisions that were not the popular decisions in the headlines the next day in The Boston Globe but it was best for that franchise to continue their dynasty.
“Whether it was having Bill Russell be the player coach, the first African-American coach ever. Choosing point guard Bob Cousy. Red did things that were unpopular. The (Kevin) McHale trade, getting McHale to go with Larry (Bird), waiting on Larry.
“There were just so many pointers when I look back on the way he ran that team.”
Lurie is the latest high-profile billionaire to be linked to potentially owning the Celtics, following the summertime rumor of reported interest from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. Bezos, for what it’s worth, apparently denied having any interest in owning the Celtics, and it’s been radio silence in terms of both the bidders and the favorites since then.
The belief is that the sale for the majority stake in the Celtics could go for as much as $6 billion.
