Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown.

progresifjaya.co.id, JAKARTA – Boston Celtics forward Jaylen Brown stated that NBA players should be allowed to build ownership stakes alongside team owners. This reflects the current fluctuations in NBA franchises, whose values have soared to billions of dollars. Brown believes that the NBA league’s current labor regulations are considered “trample” because they lag far behind the wealth that the sport can generate.

The Muslim player, who wears number 7 on his jersey, who also serves as Vice President of the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA), added that if you compare NBA players to executives at large companies today, the first word that probably comes to mind is “tyranny.”

This is because executive employees at companies like Apple or Nike are often given stock ownership as a reward for years of service. This is not the case for NBA players. However, Brown continued, professional athletes should be viewed and treated the same way.

“The sweat equity you provide is indeed paid in return for the work you do. But you’re not paid for the growth you create. That’s different from what happens in large companies,” Brown told Bloomberg News in Boston, Massachusetts, on Thursday, January 8, 2026.

“And i think players should be able to invest alongside the ownership group,” added the four-time NBA All-Star, Finals MVP, entrepreneur, and philanthropist.

In the NBPA, Jaylen Brown has been one of the union leaders since 2019, representing NBA players. Under his leadership, the NBPA successfully reached a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) in 2023, which will be in effect through the 2029–30 season.

The CBA allows players to own limited ownership stakes in public companies linked to NBA ownership interests. Of course, it doesn’t involve investing directly in teams, as Brown is currently discussing. But it must also be acknowledged that since that agreement was signed, many of the league’s top franchises have changed hands at equally astonishing valuations. This is truly TOP for Brown and the NBPA.

The Boston Celtics, a team that has been led by Jaylen Brown since 2016, underwent an acquisition process two years ago, in August 2024. The transaction value was US$6.1 billion, equivalent to Rp99 trillion. The franchise was acquired by a consortium of investors led by Bill Chisholm, co-founder of the California-based private equity firm STG Partners.

This acquisition transaction was also the largest in NBA history. However, it only lasted two months. In October 2024, this record was broken by billionaire Mark Walter, who purchased the Los Angeles Lakers in a franchise acquisition deal worth US$10 billion, or more than Rp160 trillion.

Another financial aspect that also impacted the NBA at that time was the new media broadcast rights agreement. In 2024, the NBA signed a lucrative 11-year new media deal with Walt Disney Co., NBCUniversal, and Amazon.com Inc. This media deal reportedly has the potential to generate US$76 billion, equivalent to Rp960 trillion, for the NBA league.

Founder of BostonXChange

As a professional NBA basketball player, Jaylen Brown, born in Marietta, Georgia, USA, on October 24, 1996, is known as a star player with an aggressive personality, both on and off the court. Jaylen Brown is a basketball star who has now tied the Boston Celtics’ record of nine consecutive games scoring at least 30 points.

The player, who is also known for his outspoken stance on issues of inequality and racism, demonstrated his ability to score 50 points during a West Coast tour match against the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday, January 4, 2026.

Jaylen Brown, who stands 1,98 meter and weighs 101 kg is also known as a key figure in encouraging NBA players to have greater control over how they are portrayed, including increasing their ability to speak out on issues they care about.

Shifting into the realm of education, Jaylen Brown has also been a visiting lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He also has a close partnership with the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In 2024, Jaylen Brown launched BostonXChange. This is a nonprofit organization that aims to support underserved entrepreneurs and small businesses. BostonXChange’s goal is to create US$5 billion equivalent to Rp84.2 trillion in intergenerational wealth for communities of color in Boston.

The player, whose salary with the Boston Celtics is reported to be US$53.14 million equivalent to Rp895 trillion in 2026, said the idea for BostonXChange was born after he signed a five-year, $303.7 million equivalent to Rp5.1 trillion contract extension with the Boston Celtics. Because this was the largest contract in NBA history, Brown expressed his gratitude by reinvesting a portion of the contract money back into Boston.

“The accelerator will be a full-fledged support for the talented group of people here, who are actually minority groups. They now have the opportunity to win in the city where they were born and raised,” he said.

Jaylen Brown also stated, that BostonXChange is actually part of his plan to build a modern version of Black Wall Street, a Black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that was destroyed in a racial massacre in 1921.

He used a 2015 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston as a basis for comparison and to strengthen his resolve to realize this intention. Brown noted that the study outlined data showing that the median net worth of US-born Black residents in the Boston area was only US$8 or approximately Rp134,000. This contrasted sharply with the net worth of white Boston residents, who had a net worth of nearly US$250,000, or approximately Rp4.2 billion. The disparity was significant, and it made Brown very frustrated.

Therefore, in the initial phase of his BostonXChange program, the organization would act as an incubator and accelerator, providing grants of up to US$100,000, or approximately Rp1,8 billion, over three years to applicants. Participants in this program also include a sportswear manufacturer, a children’s nutrition business, and an artificial intelligence-based marketing app. The launch of the second round of registration for this incubator program is also planned, but the exact date has not yet been determined.

Jaylen Brown also discussed his plans to expand this initiative to the Bay Area, California, where he studied at the University of California, Berkeley. This expansion plan, called Oakland XChange, is being implemented through a partnership with former NBA player and Dallas Mavericks coach Jason Kidd. Like BostonXChange, Oakland XChange also has a similar goal of supporting entrepreneurs. (Bembo)