Celtics Owners Place Value Of NBA Championship Above All Else

Pagliuca (l) And Grousbeck (With Trophy) Celebrate Celtics' 17th NBA Championship

Celtics co-Managing Partner Stephen Pagliuca yesterday appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box." CNBC’s Darren Rovell asked, “How does a team realize the value of a championship? Some people say you have to sell (the team). Others say it comes in sponsorships and sellouts and a better season ticket waiting list." Pagliuca: “We never bought this team to sell it. This is a long-term investment by a bunch of great Boston investors and we really wanted to get a championship and we've done that." Pagliuca, on the Celtics playing 26 out of a possible 28 playoff games this postseason, with each of the 14 home games being worth $1M, said, “If you win, success follows. We would have loved to have done this in 16 games. No amount of money is worth the championship” ("Squawk Box," CNBC, 6/17). In Boston, Monique Walker writes Celtics CEO & Managing Partner Wyc Grousbeck "could be considered the most visible of the ownership group." Grousbeck said late Celtics President Red Auerbach "believed in this ownership group" (BOSTON GLOBE, 6/19).

JUST IN TIME: Also in Boston, Beth Healy writes of the Celtics winning the NBA Championship in the owners' fifth season, "Any longer and their chances of ever reaching number one would have declined dramatically, recent history shows." Pagliuca: "We had a sense of urgency from day one, and we knew we had a three-to-five year window to make progress to build a championship team" (BOSTON GLOBE, 6/19). Celtics President Rich Gotham: "There was certainly a high bar in this town. It's no fun to sit on the sidelines and not be a part of it. There was a little bit of professional [jealousy] there. It's now great to place ourselves among the champions in this city" (BOSTON HERALD, 6/19).