Rogers, Bell buy majority stake in Toronto Maple Leafs
Posted December 9, 2011 5:59 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
TORONTO (NEWS1130) – News1130‘s parent company has bought a stake in one of Canada’s most hated hockey teams.
Rival media giants Rogers and Bell have teamed up to buy a 75 per cent share in Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment.
The Rogers-BCE deal is a case of “strange bedfellows” involving two of Canada’s fiercest competitors. But both companies are eager for the revenue from providing games on mobile devices and the Internet.
“The prospect of multi-platform revenue from the Leafs, Raptors and Toronto soccer motivated both companies, but both of them praise construction magante Larry Tannenbaum, the other owner, for helping to resolve the issues that scuttled the deal late last month,” explains News1130 Business Editor Richard Dettman.
“Tannenbaum will hold 25 per cent of Maple Leaf, giving him the tie-breaking vote if there are future disagreements,” he adds.
However, the rivalry remains intense. After showering Tannenbaum with praise, Rogers CEO Nadir Mohamed said of BCE’s George Cope, “And George, I guess, I dunno, go figure” drawing a laugh from the media audience.
Rogers CEO Nadir Mohamed says the fan experience will “go through the roof” with games on TV, the Internet and mobile devices all at once. He and BCE-Bell CEO George Cope are both betting their revenue will do the same from data charges on smart phones and extra-cost TV packages providing different camera angles.
The revenue split, which is the critical part of the deal, has not been detailed but Cope notes the rivals cooperated on the Vancouver Olympics, yet “we are competing every single second.”
In addition to the Toronto Maple Leafs, MLSE owns the NBA’s Toronto Raptors and MLS’s Toronto FC.
