New Celtics Owner Hints at Potential TD Garden Departure

The Boston Celtics could have a new home under new owner Williams Chisholm. In an interview with NBC Sports Boston, Chisholm said he hasn't put much thought into relocating the team, but wouldn't rule it out. 

“I really haven’t put much thought into that,” Chisholm said Thursday. “I mean, there have been a lot of banners raised in that location that the Celtics are in right now. So that’s a pretty important part of the history. We’ll get to thinking about that. But it’s also a decision that’s down the road.”

If you ask outgoing majority owner Wyc Grousbeck, he believes that’s a possibility. 

“That’s probably not something I’m even going to get into today, but I will say this: We have a long-term partnership and friendship going back with the Jacobs now 22 years,” Grousbeck said Friday on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show.” “It’s been really quite something, and we’ve risen this team to close to the top of the league, like in the top three or four of the whole league, in terms of revenues, based on that lease and that building, because of our fans and because of our team.

“It’s not broken over there, and we have a great partnership with the Jacobs. Honestly, there’s room for one arena in Boston, not two. Because you need to have concerts and events to fill out the bill. And if we ever talked to the Jacobs – we all decided to renovate the Garden very seriously; there have been huge, hundreds of millions of dollars of renovations – but if we ever decide to do anything, I’m sure we’d do it together and have both teams playing there.”

The Celtics lease the TD Garden from Delaware North. According to Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe, Chisholm will do his best to get a new arena for the Celtics. The lease runs through 2036, giving Chisholm and his people more than enough time to build a plan if they went in that direction. 

The TD Garden replaced the original in 1995 and seats 19,580 people. 

Grousbeck also added that the team spends most of its time at the team’s Auerbach Center practice facility, so an immediate plan to leave the Garden is out of the question. 

“That (practice facility) is like the best in the entire NBA. That place is second to none,” Grousbeck said on WEEI. “They’re five days a week there, and they’re, like, four hours at the Garden every couple of days. Anyway, people can talk about whatever they want to. The arena is not an issue in any way, and our relationship with the TD Garden is going to continue, and we’re all set. So that is the answer on that, and that’s, as they say, final answer.”

One thing is clear: the time is ticking on the TD Garden. 

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