Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd. (MLSE) is a professional sports and commercial real estate company based in Toronto. With assets that include franchises in four of the six major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada, it is the largest sports and entertainment company in Canada, and one of the largest in North America.
The primary holdings of the company are its major sports franchises:
- Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League
- Toronto Raptors of the National Basketball Association
- Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League
- Toronto FC of Major League Soccer
- Toronto Marlies of the American Hockey League (AHL)
- Raptors 905 of the NBA G League
- Toronto FC II of the MLS Next Pro
In addition, it owns and has invested in several sports facilities, stadiums and arenas:
- Scotiabank Arena (originally named Air Canada Centre)
- OVO Athletic Centre (originally named BioSteel Centre)
- BMO Field
- Coca-Cola Coliseum
- Ford Performance Centre
- BMO Training Ground
- Lamport Stadium
In 2024, Rogers Communications announced that it had reached an agreement to purchase BCE’s (Bell Canada Enterprises) 37.5% stake in MLSE for $4.7 billion, in a deal set to close in mid-2025.
Larry Tanenbaum
MLSE’s Chairman of the Board is Larry Tanenbaum. He owns a 25% stake in the organization through his holding company Kilmer Sports Inc.
Lawrence M. Tanenbaum (b. 1945) was born in Toronto, the grandson of religious Polish-Jewish immigrants. His father was a real estate tycoon and the founder and owner of York Steel Construction. Upon graduating from Cornell, Tanenbaum became the general manager of Kilmer Van Nostrand, a construction company that his father had bought out.
After a merger with another company in 1984, Tanenbaum became the CEO of Canada’s largest road paving company. Meanwhile, he created two new subdivisions for Kilmer: its Developments wing which is a leading Canadian real estate firm, and Kilmer Sports, for which Tanenbaum is most famous. In 2018 Tanenbaum (with a partner) bought the rights to bottle and distribute Coca-Cola in Canada.
Among Tanenbaum’s largest donations are $60 million to Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, $20 million to Montreal’s Neurological Institute and Hospital, $5 million to the University of Toronto.
https://www.jewoftheweek.net/2019/06/20/jew-of-the-week-larry-tanenbaum
Tanenbaum and his brother financed the University of Toronto’s Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies. This centre has close ties with the University of Toronto’s Andrea and Charles Bronfman Chair in Israeli Studies.
He is one of a half dozen wealthy donors that replaced the nominally democratic Canadian Jewish Congress with the donor-run Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA). In 2020 Tanenbaum’s wealth and influence over the University directly resulted in the Law School withdrawing its offer to Valentina Azarova for the position of Director of International Human Rights Program. Toronto’s Jewish community objected to Azarova’s academic work criticizing Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Tanenbaum’s nephew, David Spiro (Chair of United Jewish Appeal Toronto’s Public Affairs Committee and former co-chair of the CIJA) raised the issue during a scheduled fund-raising call with a university assistant vice-president, after which university officials received emails saying that “the Jewish community would not be pleased by the Preferred Candidate’s appointment.”
https://yvesengler.com/2021/09/26/a-blow-to-the-israel-lobby
Tanenbaum has demonstrated very strong support for Israel through various initiatives and contributions:
- In 2004 Tanenbaum was part of a group of extremely wealthy Jewish Canadian philanthropists who formed the “Israel Emergency Cabinet” in response to pro-Palestinian activism. This group eventually evolved into the Centre Israel Jewish Affairs, with Tanenbaum serving as one of its co-chairs.
https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/the-new-israel-lobby-in-action-david-noble
- Tanenbaum and his family have donated millions to Israeli causes, including a $50 million donation to the UJA (United Jewish Appeal)
- Tanenbaum has expressed strong support for Israel viewing it as a “beacon of hope and a light unto the nations”.
- As a show of his commitment to Israel, Tanenbaum planned to take the Toronto Raptors basketball team (which he partially owns) on an all-expenses-paid trip to Israel as a victory celebration after their 2019 NBA Championship win. However, despite the initial enthusiasm, the proposed trip did not materialize. The Canadian BDS Coalition claimed credit for influencing this decision through their campaign against the visit, arguing that it would serve as a form of “sports-washing” for Israel’s policies towards Palestinians.
https://canadadocs.org/online-campaign-to-pressure-toronto-raptors-not-to-visit-israel
https://mondoweiss.net/2019/07/washing-toronto-raptors
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190617-please-skipthetrip-to-israel-toronto-raptors
https://thecjn.ca/news/raptors-dispute-bds-claims-over-cancelled-israel-trip
- Tanenbaum has also been actively involved in supporting the Hapoel Jerusalem soccer club. He first became aware of the club through Nir Barkat, then-mayor of Jerusalem and current Minister of the Economy in Israel.
https://www.jpost.com/special-content/sporting-philanthropy-ifcj-and-larry-tanenbaums-impact-on-hapoel-jerusalem-752378