Finally, it might be Tanenbaum’s time
After all the waiting, Argos might deliver CEO 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, coowner of the Toronto Argonauts, chairman of the board of the NBA — took a lot of guff, he heard all about it, and being ever the optimist, sometimes the wide- eyed optimist, he looked around, smiled politely and always believed that next year was going to be a great year.
And 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 notch on his first real championship belt.
Next month is the MLS Cup. He would rather it be an MLSE Cup. Maybe a first championship, depending on what the Argos do. Maybe a second. Everything seems possible right now. Possible for a man who has rarely had his teams play for a title, let alone win one.
Oh, there was that Raptors905 crown in something called the D- League or the G- 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 happening at once and together and who knows what comes next.
The Argos could win this year and Toronto FC would win this year and maybe next year is a possibility and how long before the big one, the really big one, the Maple Leafs and a Stanley Cup.
All that means is instead of seeing head shaking at parties, there is handshaking now. He’s this close to almost everything 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, but mostly he watched equity grow without anything close to a championship anywhere. 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.
But if somehow the Grey Cup 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, moving them eventu- ally to Toronto.
If that kind of move wouldn’t have killed the Argos, it would have severely mangled the already damaged CFL team in an market that could only handle so much damage. Bidding against Tanenbaum for the Bills was the man who would become president, Donald Trump. And had Trump won that bid, he may have not have bothered with politics. The Bills wound up in the hands of 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. But because Tanenbaum and friends didn’t get the Bills, he somehow 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 a billion dollars and Bell is a giant corporation, that’s almost lunch money.
The money doesn’t matter much right now. This is a football week. A 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, finally, of a trophy to call his own.