When Bill Simmons talks Boston sports, people listen. And the Sports Guy is hearing rumors that Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos is a candidate to buy the Boston Celtics, which went on the market this summer.
In the latest episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast, Simmons took listeners into the grapevine on the potential big-time NBA transaction, saying there has been “legitimate buzz” about Bezos bidding for the Celtics.
According to Simmons, the NBA wants a valuation of $6 billion for the Celtics after the Grousbeck family announced it would put its majority stake up for sale in July.
“I think it’s real, I think he’s going to be one of the suitors,” Simmons said.
That led Simmons and guest Chuck Klosterman, longtime culture writer and author, to discuss why Bezos would want to buy the team. Greed? Image? Wealth building?
The question is the right one to ask, but an equally good question is whether Bezos would be allowed to own the Celtics.
After all, Bezos is still the chairman of the board of Amazon. The company’s streaming platform Prime Video just bought NBA broadcast rights on an 11-year deal starting in 2025. An investment by a decision-maker in that company into a business partner like the NBA certainly feels like a conflict of interest.
Perhaps that is what led Yahoo’s Kendall Baker to reject Simmons’ hypothesis altogether.
Whenever a major sports team is for sale, Jeff Bezos is “rumored to be interested” partly because he’s one of the few people who can actually afford one.
It’s purely speculation and this Celtics stuff is no different. Bill Simmons saying “there’s buzz” doesn’t change anything.
— Kendall Baker (@kendallbaker) August 19, 2024
Baker is correct that Bezos is bound to come up when sports glamour franchises become available because of his wealth. Very few people on Earth have enough cash to buy a majority of a $6 billion sports team. Bezos is one of them.
But Simmons believes Bezos may see sports as a way to launder his public image.
“For Bezos, it’s a little bit of a heat check,” Simmons said. “If I own the Celtics and I spend some money … all of a sudden there’s a subtle shift where you become more human.”
Of course, setting aside the potential anticompetitive business practices of Amazon’s chairman buying a team, there are many reasons this could fall apart. With an NBA team expected to return to Seattle through expansion this decade, wouldn’t Bezos be more likely to bid for that franchise? Amazon already sponsors the NHL and WNBA arena downtown.
Plus, the NBA has signaled a growing comfort and perhaps even an embrace of venture capital and money from foreign investment funds in recent years. Rather than going through Bezos and the baggage he brings, maybe the Celtics buyer is not one person but a broad group that benefits the NBA?
Simmons clearly knows his stuff when it comes to rich people around the NBA — especially in Boston. But we are still in the early stages of the Celtics bidding process, and Bezos is far from a sure thing.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.