HAPPY DAYS
There were plenty of smiles at BMO Field as sale of the Argonauts was officially announced,
It was viewed as a deal critical to the survival not only of the Toronto Argonauts but the entire nine-team CFL.
The CFL needed a strong ownership group behind the storied Toronto franchise, and now it has it.
After a year of tough negotiations, David Braley has reached a deal to sell the Toronto Argonauts to Bell Canada and Larry Tanenbaum, the chairman of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment.
No financial details were disclosed at a news conference Wednesday at BMO Field, which will be the CFL team’s new home in 2016 in a facility it will share with MLSE-owned soccer team Toronto FC. The stadium sits on the same site where the Argos reached their peak at old, windswept Exhibition Stadium.
It’s where Toronto Mayor John Tory would attend games as a youngster with his two uncles because his father didn’t want to endure the cold.
It’s the site where Braley would come with his mother from Hamilton and sit on the 10-yard line.
Tanenbaum’s passion for the Argos was fuelled when he was 5 years old watching the Argos play. The experience fired his imagination. “I couldn’t play, so I’m glad to be able to own the team,” Tanenbaum said.
Bell owns TSN, which is the broadcast partner of the CFL, while Tanenbaum owns 25 per cent of MLSE through his investment company, the Kilmer Group.
Rogers, which owns the Blue Jays and is a fierce competitor of Bell as part-owners of MLSE, did not want any part of the Argo deal and backed out of the negotiations in the final stages.
“In the long run, usually everybody does the thing that’s right, and this is the thing that’s right,” said Braley, who remains a CFL owner with the B.C. Lions.
CFL commissioner Jeffrey Orridge called the deal a “seminal” event in the history of the league and suggested this “halo effect and material effect” with having a strong Argo ownership team will ripple throughout the league.
“It’s a new era for the CFL,” Orridge said.
Toronto is seen as key to the financial health of the league because this is the media and commercial centre of the country.
Tanenbaum said he will be “an involved owner and a passionate fan” of the Argos. His role will be similar to his role with Toronto FC and the NHL’s Maple Leafs, also a property of MLSE.
The sale of the CFL team also triggers Phase 2 of BMO Field’s $120million renovation.
The Argos needed to move out of the cavernous Rogers Centre by the end of 2017 because their lease was to expire and it was not going to be renewed because the Blue Jays in- tend to install natural grass in 2018.
The Argo sale ensures the longterm future of the franchise after failed attempts to find a home at the University of Toronto and York University.
Tanenbaum and Bell will be equal partners.
“It wasn’t the last option,” Braley said. “It was the right option.”
The deal won’t close until the end of the year, which means the Argos are still Braley’s team for the 2015 season.
The CFL board of governors will meet in the next two weeks to vote on having BMO Field host the 2016 Grey Cup game and all signs point in Toronto’s direction.
Braley said that when bought the Argos in 2010, he thought this would be a two-year or three-year journey.
“It took five years to get the problem solved,” he said.
Negotiations became turbulent over the past year, and Rogers was seen as a major stumbling block to getting a deal done.
Jim Lawson, chairman of the CFL’s board of governors, joined the negotiations last July and was there every step of the way.
Recently, Tory stepped up the pressure but said his influence was minor.
“I was just able to provide a quiet word of encouragement,” Tory said, adding that the city owns the stadium and MLSE operates it.
In the end, Lawson said, the deal made too much sense to fail.
The new owners will support marketing efforts, but it is too soon to discuss how season tickets will be sold and distributed.
The new owners vowed that the more intimate BMO Field, which will seat about 30,000 for football, will be a sellout for every Argo game in 2016.
In addition, the field will have a hybrid grass field, which will hold up to 17 MLS regular-season games and nine CFL regular-season games, according to the new owners and MLSE outgoing CEO Tim Leiweke.