IT MIGHT JUST BE TANENBAUM’S TIME
After years of watching his teams lose, Argonauts could finally deliver a winner
There was a time Larry Tanenbaum hated going to parties.
He could handle the small talk. It was the snide talk that bothered him and his wife, Judy.
The nasty behind-the-back talk. The “what’s wrong with the Leafs?” talk. The “why are the Raptors so inept?” talk. The “why can’t you do anything right, Larry?” talk.
For too many years, as the most powerful and influential man in Canadian professional sports, Tanenbaum — chairman of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, co-owner of the Toronto Argonauts, chairman of the NBA board of governors — took a lot of guff.
He heard all about it and, being ever the optimist — sometimes the wide-eyed optimist — he smiled politely and always believed next year was going to be a great year.
For too many years, next year never came.
Until now.
This is championship week for Tanenbaum and his Toronto Argonauts. This is Grey Cup Week. One win and there’s a real first notch on his championship belt.
Next month is the MLS Cup. Maybe Toronto FC will deliver his first championship, depending on what the Argos do. Maybe it will deliver a second. Everything seems possible right now for a man who has rarely had his teams play for a title, let alone win one.
Oh, there was that Raptors 905 crown in something called the D-League or whatever they call that thing. That minor-league stuff really doesn’t resonate much outside of the Raptors’ front office.
This Sunday is real. With millions watching across the country. Next month is real. All of this is happening at once and who knows what comes next?
The Argos could win this year. Toronto FC could win this year and maybe next year. And how long before the big one, the really big one, the Maple Leafs and a Stanley Cup?
Instead of seeing head-shaking at parties, there is hand-shaking now. He’s this close after too many years of nothing but financial victories. Sports fans don’t care about that. They want wins.
Tanenbaum was in Columbus on Tuesday night to watch soccer. This weekend he’ll be in Ottawa for the Grey Cup. It’s 50-50 he wins a championship this Sunday, which means the obvious: The Argos are a better team than they are an investment.
This has been 21 years of chasing sporting dreams and titles for the very private Tanenbaum, who has mostly watched equity grow without anything close to a championship in any major league.
The Leafs and Raptors have played for a conference title. TFC lost its only title game. When the Argos last won the Grey Cup in 2012, someone else owned them.
Toronto is a city that has parades for Santa Claus and nobody else — until now, perhaps.
If the Grey Cup somehow happens for the Argos and the 72-year-old Tanenbaum, it will be a championship born of unusual circumstances. As he already had his share in the Leafs, Raptors and Toronto FC, Tanenbaum went chasing an NFL team. That was apparently a dream of his, buying the Buffalo Bills in partnership with Jon Bon Jovi and eventually moving them to Toronto.
If that kind of move wouldn’t have killed the Argos, it would have severely mangled the already damaged CFL team in a market that could handle only so much damage.
Bidding against Tanenbaum for the Bills was the man who would become president of the United States, Donald Trump. And had Trump won that bid, he may have not have bothered with politics. The Bills wound up in the hands of Buffalo Sabres owner Terry Pegula, who seems equally capable of losing in either hockey or football.
Had Tanenbaum and Bon Jovi been chosen for the Bills, the disinterested David Braley might still own the Argos and be quietly smothering the life out of the heritage franchise.
After Tanenbaum failed to get the Bills, he stayed in the football game — his pals at MLSE, from the Bell corporate side, not the Rogers corporate side, convinced him to partner with them in ownership of the leaking-money Good Ship Argonauts.
Instead of getting the Bills, he now pays them with the leaky Argonauts. The Argos can win a Grey Cup and lose a lot of money, upwards of $10 million, this season alone. In the small picture, that’s significant. In the big picture, considering Tanenbaum’s MLSE properties are worth upwards of $1 billion and Bell is a giant corporation, that’s almost lunch money.
The money doesn’t matter much right now. This is football week. Championship week. An event unlike any other. What Dick Beddoes used to call the Grand National Drunk.
And here, at the largest event in Canadian sport, Canada’s largest individual investor in Canadian sport is deserving of a trophy to finally call his own.