PLEASE, SELL: BULLS ARE WORTH $5.8 BILLION AFTER CELTICS WENT FOR $6.1 BILLION
It’s time for Michael Reinsdorf to purge his agony and ask his father to dump the team — worth much higher than flimsy feats since 1998 — and follow the lead in Boston, where the champs set a record
He prays for Matas Buzelis, who couldn’t dunk on All-Star Weekend. He hopes Josh Giddey doesn’t leave, though LeBron James likes him. He clings to possibly the worst postseason record in NBA history, with Benny the Bull shouting in an impossibly bored United Center, “29-40!”
But if Michael Reinsdorf is studying market values that have eluded his father — the White Sox are worth only $2 billion, maybe less — he’ll realize his franchise has wasted the Michael Jordan holy gift and should be sold for a stunning price. The Boston Celtics were bought this week for $6.1 billion, the highest figure for a North American sports team. The Bulls are worth $5.8 billion, according to CNBC last month, behind the Celtics, New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers. They have been brutal to watch since Jordan left with The Last Dance, with just a few exceptions, in a span of wreckage that will reach 30 years before Billy Donovan wakes up.
What is the point, Son of Jerry, of retaining a basketball team that doesn’t compete, doesn’t deserve fans and doesn’t have a legitimate TV network? Why not grab $6.5 billion and walk away from president/CEO hell at 58? Please ask your dad, who is 89. The Celtics and Lakers remain the league’s most prestigious teams, but the Bulls have lost everything about Jordan except his statue. They are stuck in no man’s land, the hopeless position between drafting Cooper Flagg and settling for another pick who might not work. At some point in time, Chicago will realize a fact of winter life: There is more to do on frozen nights than spend big money and watch another loser in a city of losers.
So, if Justin Ishbia is eyeing the Sox, Michael Reinsdorf should make it known that the Bulls generated more than $400 million in revenue last season. Their payroll ranks 24th in a 30-team league and no longer has Zach LaVine, while executive vice president Arturas Karnisovas doesn’t speak much but did save sterling comments for the Gimme the Hot Sauce podcast.
“After the season, I think we’re going to focus on the draft of 2025,” he said. “I know we’re going to get a good player.”
Wow, those sparks will reverse a 63 percent loss of TV viewers since last season, on the Chicago Sports Network, which further buries the Bulls as a missing American cause.
The Celtics were sold after their latest championship season, topping the $6.05 billion paid for the NFL’s Washington Commanders by Josh Harris. A group led by Wyc Grousbeck bought the team for $360 million. Jerry Reinsdorf bought the Bulls for $16 million in 1985. Isn’t it, um, time to sell? Some loon will spend more than $6 billion.
And I’m guessing he will buy free agents. The Reinsdorfs aren’t serious about those creatures, knowing Jerry never has spent more than $75 million for a baseball player when Juan Soto makes $765 million and Shohei Ohtani makes $700 million. I remember the night when Tim Floyd walked into the Lodge Tavern on Division Street and reminded us that Tracy McGrady was nearby with Jerry Krause. Guess what? McGrady didn’t sign, setting a tone for a quarter-century of grief. Even Oprah Winfrey couldn’t help.
“I stepped a foot off the plane, walk through the terminal when I first step through the terminal, I see Benny the Bull, I see the cheerleaders like they had a whole parade for me at the airport,” McGrady told a podcast. “I’m like, 'Oh, Lord'. (Then I) get to the hotel, get into my room, they pop in a tape, Oprah sent me a personal message — oh boy, Oprah’s talking to me. I go the freakin' Cubs game, take me out to the ball game, I'm in the dugout where Ernie Banks, I throw out the first pitch, sit in the stands, they've got an airplane flying over with advertising and talking about me, and I'm like oh my Lord. Like they rode out the red carpet for me.”
And he signed with Orlando, where he averaged 28.1 points a game.
Bill Chisholm, managing partner of Symphony Technology Group, is the new owner of the Celtics. “Bill is a terrific person and a true Celtics fan, born and raised here in the Boston area,” said Grousbeck, who will remain the team’s CEO and governor into 2028. “His love for the team and the city of Boston, along with his chemistry with the rest of the Celtics leadership, make him a natural choice to be the next governor and controlling owner of the team.”
“A die-hard Celtics fan my entire life,” Chisholm said.
Somewhere in a metropolitan area of nine million, in a country of 347 million, a die-hard Bulls fan will pay up and own the team. Until then, Michael Reinsdorf will be Jerry Reinsdorf and exist through extreme torture. When the Grousbecks made off with the money, while wearing new rings, men cannot own the Chicago Bulls and rot away.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.