Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie reportedly a finalist to buy Boston Celtics
BOSTON -- The Philadelphia Eagles are off to the Super Bowl, but team owner Jeffrey Lurie may also have the Boston Celtics on his mind. Lurie is reportedly in the running to buy the defending NBA champs, according to Bill Simmons of The Ringer.
The first round of bids for the Boston Celtics were reportedly due last week, and Lurie has emerged as one of the finalists to buy the franchise, according to Simmons.
"Four or five people made the first round. One of the people was the Eagles owner, Jeffrey Lurie, who is apparently from Massachusetts," Simmons said on his podcast Sunday night while discussing the upcoming Eagles-Chiefs Super Bowl LIX matchup. "There's been a couple of, 'Hmm, I wonder who these guys are?' And there was a couple I couldn't figure out. But that's one that is in the mix."
Simmons said he believes that the Eagles are "one of the best run football teams," so he had a pretty positive reaction to the news.
"If he bought the Celtics, that's a decent outcome," said Simmons.
Who is Jeffrey Lurie?
Lurie, 73, has owned the Eagles since buying the team in 1994 for $195 million. The Eagles have been to the NFL playoffs 19 times since Lurie bought the team, including eight trips to the NFC Championship Game and now four trips to the Super Bowl. The Eagles won the franchise's only championship in 2017, when Philadelphia beat New England, 41-33, in Super Bowl LII.
The Eagles will square off against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX on Feb. 9 in New Orleans.
Lurie was born in Boston and attended several local colleges, receiving his bachelors degree at Clark, his masters at Boston University, and his doctorate at Brandeis. He hasn't hidden his Boston fandom since buying the Eagles, and was in attendance for Game 1 of the NBA Finals between the Celtics and the Dallas Mavericks at TD Garden last summer.
The Lurie family has a net worth of $5.3 billion, according to Forbes.
Sale of the Boston Celtics
Just a few days after the Celtics celebrated their 18th title in franchise history in July, the Grousbeck family announced its intentions to sell the franchise. The Grousbecks purchased the team back in 2002 for $360 million, and are now expected to land somewhere between $5-6 million for the franchise.
The sale of the Celtics is expected to be a two-part process, with 51 percent of the sale set to be complete sometime in 2025 and the final 49 percent of the sale being completed in 2028. Wyc Grousbeck hopes to remain as Team Governor until the full sale is complete in a few years.
Now that the initial round of bids are in, we should get some more news on other finalists and potentially some clarity on the sale process in the near future.
