His name is Bill Chisholm, and if that’s an unfamiliar name to you, you’ve probably a basketball fan who’s been more focused on the college version. But to Massachusetts natives and especially those who favor the Celtics, especially with nary a school from the state in the men’s Big Dance, he’s the very definition of March Madness.
This was how most of us learned of his existence–with a hurried breaking news piece authored by no less than three members of THE ATHLETIC’s staff–Mike Vorkunov, Jay King, and Jared Weiss– yesterday morning:
The Boston Celtics will have a new owner for the first time in more than two decades and two NBA championships. William Chisholm, the managing partner of Symphony Technology Group, will buy the franchise at a $6.1 billion valuation, a source briefed on the deal confirmed to The Athletic. The deal still needs approval from the NBA’s Board of Governors.
Chisholm is a lifelong Celtics fan and grew up on Boston’s North Shore. Sixth Street, a private equity firm, is also buying a portion of the team, as well as current Celtics minority owners Rob Hale and Bruce A. Beal Jr.
There’s little else the trio were able to dig up at that ungodly hour. Heck, even Chisholm’s Wikipedia page was hurriedly cobbled together only yesterday, and these were about the only other details even the entire Internet was able to contribute:
Chisholm grew up in Georgetown, Massachusetts.[1] His father, William F. Chisholm, Sr. (1929-2017), played a role in establishing the Georgetown High School soccer program.[2] Bill, Jr. attended Dartmouth College, where he played for the soccer team.[3] He graduated from Dartmouth in 1991 and later received a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. At the start of his career, Chisholm worked in technology investing and investment banking.[3] He worked with the management consulting company Bain & Company, which was based in Boston, the investment bank Paine Webber, and co-founded the Valent Group, a venture capital and risk consulting firm.[3][1] In 2002, he co-founded the Symphony Technology Group (STG), a private equity firm based in California.[4] At STG, he serves as the firm’s managing partner and chief investment officer (CIO), being head of its investment activities and working “in the day-to-day management of STG companies” . He grew up a fan of the Boston Celtics and is reported to have an “encyclopedic knowledge” of the team.
Great. A money guy and an uberfan. As someone who’s embraced the Mets’ similarly auspiced and impassioned owner as a kindred spirit who just happened to have made a few more shekels, by all accounts Chisholm sounds like a decent dude.
But if you ask a passionate Celtics fan, there’s a whole lot more intrigue and suspect attached to Chisholm. For one, he’s on the hook for a LOT more cache, as the ATHLETIC’s troika spelled out:
The sale price is the largest for a North American sports franchise, topping the $6.05 billion a group led by Josh Harris paid for the NFL’s Washington Commanders and far surpassing the $4 billion valuation the Phoenix Suns got when Mat Ishbia bought the team in 2023.
And for another, he’s apparently a dark of a horse to emerge victorious in any decision involving the Celtics in recent years:
Current Celtics minority owner Stephen Pagliuca and Philadelphia Phillies minority owner Stan Middleman were among the other bidders for the Celtics. Pagliuca had been considered the favorite by industry sources for the last few months.
According to uberfan Bill Simmons, who dished quite a bit about this on his eponymous podcast yesterday, Pagliuca in particular feels like Brutus, apropos in the week following the Ides of March. As Simmons, whose nine-part love song to the team his family has had season tickets to for more than half a century CELTICS CITY is currently running on MAX, attempted to explain, there was apparently quite a bit of infighting between Pagliuca and outgoing majority owner Wyc Grousbeck, who is described as enough of a thin-skinned nepobaby to give even the Knicks’ James Dolan or any current adminsitration cabinet member a run for their money. Per the ATHLETIC’s King:
Grousbeck, the Celtics’ current governor and CEO, will remain in those roles through the 2027-2028 NBA season, a source briefed on the deal said, and continue to oversee team operations.
Per Simmons, something as trivial as who got to hold up the championship trophy last summer was enough for the more experienced bidders to fall out of favor. And, oh yeah, when someone wags a couple of billion extra in your face over the previous NBA top dollar, it can grab your attention. So why not take the money and save yourself that potential for recurring?
Well, for one thing, as the NEW YORK POST’s Charles Gasparino chided, even with all that dough Chisholm’s got some unique challenges ahead:
One thing is certain: Chisholm will likely need all the money he and his partners can drum up to keep the cast of defending NBA champs together – considering the hated Knicks rivals feature a roster projected to cost around $500 million for the 2025-26 season because of a luxury tax hit for blowing past the salary cap, as The Post previously reported.
Plus, he faces a headache about where his very expensive team plays. The Celtics don’t own their home arena TD Garden, a hospitality firm named Delaware North does. There’s a lot of talk that he wants to build and own his own venue to generate the revenues needed to finance that expensive payroll, which means more billions.
To make it work the numbers work, sources say he can tap Wall Street sources. Chisholm hired JPMorgan and its controversial but powerful wealth management chief Mary Erdoes (her unit allowed convicted pedophile Jeffery Epstein to do business with the bank long after he spent time in jail) to work on the deal, including putting the finishing touches on all the moving parts as news of the shocking sale became official, sources said.
I don’t think there’s a fan nath of Hahvard Yahd that’s gonna care about the resume of anyone who will somehow be able to help keep the Two Jays (-son Tatum and -len Brown) together, let alone the underrated Derrick White and the emerging Sam Hauser and Peyton Pritchard. And with the age and fragility of the team’s current big men–Al Horford, Robert Williams III and Kristaps Porzingis–all having large question marks attached to them, there’s gonna likely be a need to find such a presence somewhere. Ask any Lakers fan how hard that is since they unloaded Anthony Davis.
At least we know about Erdoes. Even the gossipy Gasparino was coming up short in his attempt to find something more concrete about Chisholm:
Chisholm also has a low-key presence out in Silicon Valley, according to bankers who have worked with him. His resume includes co-founding something called the Valent Group, and years working at private equity powerhouse Bain Capital before founding Symphony in 2002. “I’ve never heard of the guy,” said one top executive at a major sports franchise.
But as those following CELTICS CITY know quite well, for as much concern as anyone has about Chisholm’s abilities, he’ll likely not reach the nethers of one John Y. Brown, better known as the guy who made Kentucky Fried Chicken popular and snagged CBS sportscasting pioneer and former Miss America Phyllis George during a notorious run in the 1970s. As part of his arc, Brown wound up in charge of the Celtics just after they won two titles in three years, effectively trading his Buffalo Braves to the Celtics’ head who yearned to escape New England winters so badly he was willing to swap his championship team for the struggling Braves. As Wikipedia recounts the details that went into this week’s episode, it was not the best of times for the franchise:
Two weeks before the swap of franchises was made official, details of a six-player trade between the two were reported.[33] Boston sent Freeman Williams, Kevin Kunnert, and Kermit Washington to the Braves for “Tiny” Archibald, Billy Knight, and Marvin Barnes.[33] The move turned Boston fans against Brown, both because Kunnert and Washington were seen as key pieces of the team’s future and because team president and legendary former coach Red Auerbach publicly stated that he was not consulted about the trade.[33] The relationship between Brown and Auerbach worsened with Brown’s decision to trade three first-round draft picks that Auerbach had planned to use to rebuild the franchise for Bob McAdoo.[8] Again, Brown made the trade without consulting Auerbach.[34] Auerbach almost left Boston to take a job with the New York Knicks as a result.[8
According to the veteran Boston fans and writers who participated in the episode, Brown’s obsession with McAdoo was was driven not only by his experience with him in Buffalo, but with George’s input gleaned from her colleagues at CBS who happened to be covering the NBA at the time. During the brief period where McAdoo wore a shamrock, the team finished 29-53. Brown fortunately cashed out his investment after that season, Auerbach chose to stay, and then drafted Larry Bird. Things got better.
From what we can tell, Chisholm’s wife Kimberly Ford has no ties to anyone covering the league, and he doesn’t seem to have a fetish for 11 herbs and spices.
So let’s just see what happens, eh, Celtics City?
Courage…