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Toronto Raptors

  • Thread starter billy corgan19982
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Some unfortunate news from MLSE land, Tannenbaum is going to sell of an underdetermined stake of his holdings to OMERS.

Now if anyone remembers the days of when the OTPP owned the majority of MLSE, they'll remember that was the worst era for the Leafs (asides from the Ballard years) and Raptors since there was virtually no accountability. The top boss (Richard Peddie at the time) could do whatever he pleased (which was run bad teams) and nothing would ever happen to him.

The only thing that's keeping the Raptors, Leafs, Argos and TFC from all turning into complete laughing stalks right now is Tannenbaum. We've seen that Edward Rogers is a lunatic and is willling to mess around and destroy all of the franchises, and it remains to be seen what Marko Bibic wants to do since his busy gutting Bell Media (however the previous CEO George Cope was supportive in investing in all teams).

 
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The Star is reporting that MLSE has ended their attempt to pursue a WNBA expansion team.

Ah yes the dummy Edward Rogers strikes again! Perhaps the most idiotic executive in Toronto.

Honestly if it wasnt for Bell and Larry Tanenbaum; the Leafs, Raptors, Argos, and TFC would all turn into the biggest dumpster fire that no one has ever seen in their lives (a la Harold Ballard era, or New York Knicks current clown era).
 
The Star has a followup on the MLSE WNBA franchise today.

Much as expected, Rogers was opposed, Tannenbaum was in favour, and Bell decided to abstain as while it's implied they supported the idea, they did not want to proceed without unanimous board approval.

The arguments against revolved around projected income losses that were agreed to continue on for many years, and while not mentioned in the story, I believe the arguments included MLSE having to fund that with expensive borrowed money, as they are already dumping a lot of free cash into both the arena renovations, and on USD$10+ million/year on dead contracts to injured Maple Leafs players. They would have to take out financing at high rates today to pay for this, adding to those income losses.

The counter argument is that the upfront capital costs of acquiring a WNBA team will continue to rise faster than the sum of those income losses. A $50M expansion fee today will likely become $100M in perhaps only five years, plus MLSE already has so many synergies with managing and broadcasting in place, adding a new team to the fold is an easy implementation at the corporate level for the organisation. They aren't reinventing the wheel here, they know what they are doing.

 
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It's tempting to try! My mom keeps mentioning it - that was her maiden name, and it's a fairly rare one...

Interesting! I wonder what would be the easiest way to try and get in contact though. Whether to go the social media route or through the team's media inquiries.
 
Went to the Raps vs Celtics game last night. First Raps home game I've attended in a few years now.


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