Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment president and CEO Keith Pelley speaks to the media in Toronto, on May 23.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
The first time Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment CEO Keith Pelley addressed the Toronto hockey media a year ago, he was flanked by Leafs president Brendan Shanahan and GM Brad Treliving. He began like this:
“Thank you all for coming this morning. I will not make this a habit of participating in team operations news conferences.”
And he didn’t. Not until he’d taken full control of the team. That change was made on Thursday and symbolically formalized on Friday, when Pelley appeared in the same circumstances, but alone.
As coups go, this one wasn’t just bloodless. It was noiseless. There were no cries of dissent or ‘What team did Keith Pelley ever play for?’ Everyone has fallen into line.
During that news conference, there were a lot of soft words about culture change thrown out there. There always are. But Pelley’s mission statement was this: “The greatest game on Earth is hockey, and the greatest hockey team on Earth is the Toronto Maple Leafs.”
So now we know why he came home.
The remarkable thing here isn’t that the Leafs choked and someone got fired because of it.
What matters is that the entire MLSE stable of teams is being methodically brought under the vision of two men.
When former CEO Tim Leiweke was in charge, he proposed a system of integrated statelets led by charismatic leaders. It was his biggest idea.
Masai Ujiri was first – a charismatic basketball savant who could persuade people to come along with him as he tanked the team. In the end, he didn’t, and won a championship.
Then there was Tim Bezbatchenko, a then 31-year-old neophyte brought in to run Toronto FC. He was smart enough to build a winner, and even smarter to let Leiweke be the co-pilot on the team he cared about the most.
Shanahan arrived last, a local hero with zero experience in management. Someone with a big enough name to ride herd over a stampeding franchise.
Three men in charge. Three very different ways of going about it. Two championships.
It worked exceedingly well, as long as Leiweke was there doing his benign Machiavelli act. He had a way of surprising you with a phone call out of nowhere – ‘TIM LEIWEKE HERE!’ – and you’d begin shuffling papers around your desk at home, trying to look busy. And I didn’t even work for him.
Once he left, a lot of belts and top buttons got let out. Now the princes of sport were answerable to new, indistinguishable sports executives who would not dream of talking sports with the actual sports people. The result was rot.
Pelley’s mission, it seems, is take away the sheriff badges until he’s wearing them all.
Last week, he was ultimately in charge of the Argos and TFC. Next week, he’s in charge of the Leafs.
“I’m not looking to replace Brendan,” Pelley said. “I’m looking to work closer with Brad.”
As his boss.
It once seemed unimaginable that Ujiri would ever leave his perch at the Toronto Raptors. It’s imaginable now. Possibly even possible. Pelley was notably non-effusive in his praise of the club.
An are-we-or-aren’t-we? tank this year resulting in a ninth overall pick hasn’t improved morale. This summer will be a crossroads for the basketball club.
Were the final domino to fall, Pelley would become the capo di tutti capi, except there won’t be any other bosses to be boss of. Just Pelley and a bunch of GMs doing the scouting.
The other person who matters here is Edward Rogers. Within a few weeks, the takeover he’s guided is expected to be complete and Rogers Inc. will assume control of MLSE.
We must assume that Pelley’s plan is also Rogers’s plan. Why else would it be happening?
What would you do if – poof! – I gave you a bunch of major-league sports teams? Be honest. You’d start showing up at the rink or the park every day. At first, you’d be quiet and listen a lot. After a while, you’d start talking. And then after you’d seen the team lose a thousand times, you’d start bringing your mood board to work so that everyone else could take notes.
Rogers has been that quiet guy for more than 10 years. Now he can be the talkative guy, except he doesn’t have to talk in front of the sports people. He doesn’t know their language. So he has Pelley – a sports polyglot – to talk for him.
Nobody buys a sports team to make money, even if that’s the result. If money’s your motivator, you stick to unromantic businesses that no one else understands, like telecom.
You get involved in sports because you want to be in the mix. You want the people you see on TV to be your friends (because they have to) and nod at you in the hallway after games.
Back in the day, you’d sometimes see George Cope, then president of Bell, sitting in an aerie above the Raptors practice court, looking down on proceedings. He was running a $20-billion company at the time, which I suspect is complicated. But here he was, mid-morning on a workday, watching guys do gym. That’s the allure.
At some point, people are going to object to this new arrangement, but it makes sense on its face. What does the president of a sports club do anyway?
If things are working right, nothing. He’s a vibe guy. He makes sure everyone else is loose enough to do their job well, but also answerable to someone.
This was the job description Pelley gave on Friday – “a holistic leader,” “a sounding board,” who facilitates “culture and chemistry of building championships.”
At worst, a president is making trades. He’s in the players’ ears. In that scenario, what’s the GM’s and the coach’s job? It’s managing the president. At which point you wonder, who’s managing the team?
It’s possible that one authoritative voice on top of everything, speaking in general terms, but not involved in all but the most important specific decisions, makes for an interesting business case. If less people are talking, will more teams be winning?
Based on recent events, Pelley, Rogers and MLSE are going to test it out under real-world conditions.