The Boston Celtics and the two media outlets they own are up for sale with a price tag of $200 million, Wednesday's Boston Globe reported. The paper cites "two well-informed sources in the Boston business community" as saying that the team and both WFXT-TV and WEEI Radio are for sale.
However, Celtics' majority owner Don Gaston refuted the report to the Globe Tuesday night. Gaston said that a reorganization of the ownership was in the works, but said that he and his family enjoyed the team far too much to sell his majority ownership."We are not trying to sell the team," said Gaston. "We are trying to reorganize."
Gaston did confirm that the corporation that runs the Celtics and the TV and radio stations, Boston Celtics Limited Partnership, has been placed for sale with New York investment firm Morgan Stanley.
"The last thing I want to do is sell my majority interest in the Celtics," said Gaston. "We asked Morgan Stanley to see how we are structured and offer a plan for restructuring. It could mean the selling of a piece of the team.
"We have close to 80,000 stockholders and that has become very unwieldy and expensive to operate."
The team is controlled by three principal owners - Gaston, Alan Cohen and Paul DuPree. Gaston owns 32.5 percent of the club, DuPree 14.7 percent and Cohen 11.8 percent.
The Celtics sell out every game and have lucrative television and radio contracts that gave them a profit of $10.7 million for fiscal 1991, but the TV and radio stations are reportedly losing a million dollars a month.
Gaston and his group bought 100 percent of the team in 1985 from Florida businessman Harry Mangurian for $19 million. In 1988, they took 40 percent of the team public, selling $48 million worth of stock while remaining in control of the club.
The partnership used the money to buy the TV and radio stations.
The public stock carries no voting rights.
The most money ever paid out for an NBA team is $90 million. That happened last month when the Orlando Magic were sold.
Jerry Jacobs, owner of the Boston Garden and the Boston Bruins, is mentioned in the story as a possible buyer for the Celtics. The paper reports that Jacobs is attempting to raise money to build a new Boston Garden, and owning the Celtics could give him more leverage with the city and local banks.