Advertisement - scroll for more content
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement - scroll for more content
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Mike Vorkunov: Rogers Communications, owners of the Raptors and Maple Leafs, intends to sell a minority stake in MLSE after completing its purchase of Larry Tanenbaum's 25% share, and is targeting the first half of 2027 for that. “The proceeds from that will be used to pay down debt and to de-lever," Rogers CFO Glenn Brandt said on an earnings call today.
Rogers Communications, the Canadian communications/media giant that previously owned 75% of Maple Leafs Sport & Entertainment, has reached a deal to assume full control of the Raptors‘ parent company, per a press release from Rogers. Rogers held a 37.5% share of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment up until September 2024, when it bought out BCE (Bell)’s 37.5% stake in MLSE to increase its share of the company to 75%. The ownership agreement gave Rogers the right to buy out the remaining 25%, primarily held by Larry Tanenbaum‘s Kilmer Sports Inc.
Rogers Communications Inc. signed a $4.35 billion agreement to become the 100 percent owner of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, which owns the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors, buying the last 25 percent ownership stake from Kilmer Sports Inc., the company announced Monday. The deal is subject to league approvals, and Rogers said it expects it to close at the end of 2026.
Basketball was at the centre of several disagreements within the old MLSE structure, however. Larry Tanenbaum wanted to bring a WNBA team to Toronto, but could not reach a consensus within the group. He eventually won a bid for an expansion team, which became the Toronto Tempo, who started play this season.
Advertisement
The Knicks have contested that Silver would not be an unbiased decision-maker in the matter due to his connection to Larry Tanenbaum, a part-owner of the Raptors and the NBA’s chairman of the Board of Governors. In court filings, the Knicks had argued that Tanenbaum “serves as Silver’s boss and exercises control over and heavily influences Silver’s continued employment and salary.” Silver refused to respond to questions about his objectivity when he spoke with reporters in Las Vegas after the owners meetings in July. “The second part of your question [about the Knicks questioning my objectivity], I won’t respond to,” Silver said at the time while discussing the court’s decision to have the NBA handle the matter.
Stefan Bondy: NEWS: The Knicks and Raptors had been ordered by court nearly six months ago to go through the NBA to arbitrate their lawsuit. However, today the teams filed a joint letter explaining that the NBA has not even started the process. Knicks are not happy with Adam Silver. Here's a statement from an MSG Spokesman to The Post. “We’ve been waiting for any direction from the NBA on next steps in this matter for months – proving our point that the NBA is not capable of appropriately and fairly handling this serious theft of proprietary and confidential files. Unfortunately, because of the clear conflict of interest between the Commissioner and the Chairman of the NBA, there has been complete silence from the league.”
Vince Carter even held everyone’s attention when he wasn’t playing at all, setting off a firestorm when that Raptors-76ers series went to a Game 7. The game was scheduled for late Sunday afternoon. But Carter was determined to attend his graduation from North Carolina in Chapel Hill Sunday morning, when he received the degree in African-American Studies he’d earned the fall before. He got the degree, got on then-owner Larry Tanenbaum’s plane, and got to Wells Fargo Center five hours before tipoff. But Carter only shot 6 of 18 from the floor, missing the potential series-winner at the buzzer, setting off frenzied debate about whether he’d made the right decision. Carter told me that summer that he’d do it all over again, the exact same way.
The NBA’s proposed operating budget has increased by nearly 8% year-over-year, and the league’s Board of Governors (BoG) were not adequately briefed on the candidates to replace Larry Tanenbaum as BoG chair ahead of Tuesday’s election, the Daily News has learned. These concerns were highlighted in a letter Knicks owner James Dolan sent to the NBA’s Board of Governors on Monday, according to a source familiar with the contents.
Advertisement
The ownership structure of the Raptors likely will change in the next two years, with Bell and Rogers having the option to buy out Larry Tanenbaum’s remaining holdings in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, per Sportsnet. Ujiri and Tanenbaum are tight; it is possible these two contracts are the last big things Ujiri does in this position.
Josh Lewenberg: Tanenbaum: “This team is Canada’s team.” While Toronto’s WNBA team (14th in the league) will play its home games at Coca-Cola Coliseum in Exhibition Place, the plan is for it to also play select regular season games in Vancouver and Montreal.
CBC Sports has learned that Kilmer Sports Inc., headed by Toronto billionaire Larry Tanenbaum, has been granted an expansion franchise with the Women's National Basketball Association. An announcement is expected May 23 in Toronto, with the team to begin play in May 2026, according to four people with knowledge of the deal but who are not authorized to speak about it.