So today is the day that the Teachers Pension fund has finally gotten out of the sports business and have sold it to the unholy alliance (the Bell and Rogers tag team) for an amazing 1.3 billion dollars and in exchange the unholy alliance gets 75% of MLSE (Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment). It breaks down like this where Bell gets 37.5% of the company and Rogers gets 37.5% and the remainder goes to Larry Tanenbaum who had 20.5% of the company and is expected to go up to 25% and he will continue to be the chair of MLSE and be the governor for the sports entities but in the end Larry Tanenbaum and his company Kilmer Sports Inc will be come very wealthy because he will at some point sell at least 13% of the team to either Bell or Rogers for a lot of money so that one will become the voice of the company and make the decision.
So the big question is how will it effect the Sports entities so here what I think:
The Maple Leafs: First there is no surprise that TSN radio starting in the 2012/2013 season will carry all Leafs games. So the big question is how can the move make the team better and with the salary cap and the other teams in the NHL unwilling to trade their better players so the only real way to better the team is if the Leafs hire more diamond finders because it is all about what the second/third/fourth round picks do and if they get players like the Detroit Red Wings have over the last almost two decades. Also the new owners do not put up will failing because the Leafs standards for excellence has never been lower as the fans will be simply happy making the playoffs instead of being in the Stanley Cup Final or even imaging the hoisting the cup which means Burke and Wilson should not feel as comfortable as they do.
The Raptors: The Raptors will stay on Rogers Sportsnet 590 and it is difficult to build a team in the NBA so they need to start by getting the best possible player in the draft along with trying to get better players to come to Toronto which is the difficulty as NBA players like to visit so I've heard but do not want to live here. The reality is that the company need to go into the luxury tax because the teams on top of the NBA are over the cap and the Raptors need to be there to challenge those bigger than life teams who win the championship.
Toronto Football Club (TFC): really when U look at TFC they have already begun to realize that TFC fans will not put up with losing so the team has already gone through a huge face lift already and have to continue to rebuild the team because right now is the best TFC has ever been as they still are in the kind of like the championship series that Europe has but they need to be better in the league play.
So the deal will not be finalized until likely mid-2012 as they have a lot of hoops to jump through first like with CRTC, the NBA, the NHL, and the MLS and today really showed that when everything is quiet it is more likely a deal will be done and when there is a lot of talk it is likely not to happen because the only correct talk was that a deal would not be done until the NBA lockout was over and that it was done like 12 hours after the lockout was finalized.
So lets see who ends up being the majority owner of the company in the end
Tom Mehegan
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