Report: Celtics to look into building new arena

Air rights over West Station would be a funny option as it means replanning that whole area for the 1000th time. Any scenario missing out on a commuter rail terminal is rough, but if new ownership had any balls they’d build there and complete the north south rail link to serve it.

Might be too small of a footprint, but similarly chaotic would be right down the road with air rights over the pike next to Fenway.
 
I don't understand the need for the C's to build a new arena. Is Delaware North jacking up the lease?
 
citydweller said:
I don't understand the need for the C's to build a new arena. Is Delaware North jacking up the lease?
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There could be money to be made between stadium naming rights and events. But it seems like a longshot unless they bribe lobby Josh Kraft enough to run for governor with the promise of state funding or tax breaks on their behalf, I hear he likes stadiums outside of Roxbury.
 
citydweller said:
I don't understand the need for the C's to build a new arena. Is Delaware North jacking up the lease?
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No. It's just wild media speculation that the new C's ownership automatically wants a new arena because they spent so many billions to not want to play second-fiddle to the Bruins. Absolutely no statement by the organization thus far suggests that they are actually looking for a new arena.
 
As the article points out, Philadelphia is a better analogy than Dallas.
If all this is starting to sound familiar, it’s likely because of the recent throwdown in Philadelphia between the Flyers and 76ers owners. That was a slightly different scenario — their arena is privately owned, solely by the Flyers owners — but it played out similarly: Sixers owner Josh Harris launched plans to build his own new arena to outcompete the Flyers for concerts, and eventually used this as leverage to get the Flyers owners to agree to jointly build a new arena at the current site. (There’s since been talk of a similar possible dispute in Boston between the Celtics and Bruins.)
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I think the resolution between the Sixers and Flyers is more likely the intended outcome here, but again, we have to return to the fact that there have been no documented statements from the Celtics regarding any of this.
 
Arenacale said:
A brief look at a scenario in Dallas playing out between the Mavericks and the Stars who currently share an arena, with a nod that this situation could be what is to come with the Celtics and Bruins: https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2025...y-taxpayers-hold-on-to-your-wallets/#comments
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There's a few things that separate the Boston situation from Dallas. First (and most importantly), the Celtics have still made no comment to indicate that this is a problem. Sure, they're probably seeding some of these stories, but the Mavs/Stars situation has been building for years in public. Second, the Mavs owners are casino people who want to leverage their basketball team to bring people to a future gaming complex, whether in Texas or in Vegas. Bill Chisholm does not, AFAIK, have any other business at this point than the Celtics and does not own any large property he'd seek an anchor for. Third, as deMause notes, the Metroplex has many large cities with potential interest in paying for arenas, following Arlington's example. The Celtics' market has zero public entities interested in public funding for stadiums, to my knowledge. Even in Everett, as much of a pro-development striver as you'll see around here, the Krafts are making payments, not receiving them.

I agree that the situation lines up far better with Philly than with Dallas, with the additional constaint that the 76ers could sell the idea of a downtown arena, where Boston already has one.
 
Jeremy Jacobs is known to be a pain in the butt, even by Billionaire standards. That being said, I think yeah it would be better if they stay.
 
Equilibria said:
There's a few things that separate the Boston situation from Dallas. First (and most importantly), the Celtics have still made no comment to indicate that this is a problem. Sure, they're probably seeding some of these stories, but the Mavs/Stars situation has been building for years in public. Second, the Mavs owners are casino people who want to leverage their basketball team to bring people to a future gaming complex, whether in Texas or in Vegas. Bill Chisholm does not, AFAIK, have any other business at this point than the Celtics and does not own any large property he'd seek an anchor for. Third, as deMause notes, the Metroplex has many large cities with potential interest in paying for arenas, following Arlington's example. The Celtics' market has zero public entities interested in public funding for stadiums, to my knowledge. Even in Everett, as much of a pro-development striver as you'll see around here, the Krafts are making payments, not receiving them.

I agree that the situation lines up far better with Philly than with Dallas, with the additional constaint that the 76ers could sell the idea of a downtown arena, where Boston already has one.
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A few other crucial factors at play here:

--if the Celtics built and owned an arena with themselves as the primary tenant--for the 325 other nights a year when they're not playing, how are they going to fill the joint with paying gigs--from Taylor Swift and Nate Bargatze to monster-truck rallies to Disney Ice-capades, and everything in-between--that are lucrative enough to generate sufficient ROI to cover the colossal debt service of having bought the Celtics in the first place AND the additional colossal debt service of stadium development, construction, and long-term facilities maintenance/management?

--if the Celtics built and owned an arena with themselves as the primary tenant--and struggled mightily to fill the joint the other 325 nights a year when they're not playing there, which is an extremely reasonable speculation (after all, it's not like they're Live Nation)--what would Plan B be? It's not like they can stick a gun to the head of their paying customers for the 41 nights a year the Cs are playing there, and say, "now buy enough concessions merch to compensate for the total lack of non-Celtics events we've been able to book for the joint."

As noted above, it's all vapid media hype. They ain't going anywhere, for decades, precisely because they just got bought.
 
I think the expectation is that they are going to have to do something once their lease is up.
 
jklo said:
I think the expectation is that they are going to have to do something once their lease is up.
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In 2036. With, again, no statements whatsoever from the organization that they are even thinking of looking for a new arena much less that their relationship with Jacobs/Delaware North is non-productive enough that a lease extension past 2036 would be any bit a question mark. The Celtics sell out the building 41 times a year + playoffs. Jacobs is not going to replace that revenue with a comparable slate of one-off events or a minor league team, so I doubt the landlord is being the least bit antagonistic to their tenants.

Where exactly is this "expectation" coming from? Oh, right...vapid media hype.
 
www.bostonglobe.com

A new Celtics arena in South Boston? Convention center execs discussed it. - The Boston Globe

After last year's sale of the Celtics was completed, MCCA executives discussed a scenario in which a new basketball arena could be built in the Seaport.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com

More vapid media hype. Just including the buried relevant portion

So how serious were these arena conversations? Apparently, not very. Jeff Robbins, Vernon’s lawyer, says Vernon recalls these as high-level conceptual discussions, as part of normal due diligence when undertaking a strategic plan, but did not go much further than that.

Likewise, a spokesperson for the MCCA confirmed that the idea was explored as part of a broader review of long-term opportunities, but the authority is not pursuing it now.

Most importantly, what does Chisholm think? In a wide-ranging press conference held just days before these email exchanges, the private equity executive was asked whether he would consider moving the C’s to another location. After conceding it’s too early to close the door definitively, he went on to praise the Garden as a venue, saying it’s beloved by players and fans. Plus, if the C’s did make the decision to move, he would want the B’s to be part of it. (The Jacobs family controls TD Garden owner Delaware North, and also owns the B’s.)

Bottom line: We’ve got a great thing going, so let’s not mess with it.
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Equilibria said:
Key quote there: "he would want the Bruins to be part of it". So the notion of a separate Celtics arena is - to all appearances - dead and was never alive.
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My assumption is that if Chisolm is involved in these rumors at all, it's only to create some leverage with Delaware North to negotiate a better deal for the Celtics at the existing Garden. Nobody in their right mind would think shoehorning a basketball only venue into a less central and transit adjacent location would make any kind of financial sense.
 
Would he be dumb enough to contemplate lashing himself and the team to Kraft and pitch a stadium out near Gillette?
 
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