Keith W. Pelley (born January 11, 1964) is a sports executive who is the president & CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE). [1] He has previously served as & president of the PGA European Tour, the CEO of Rogers Media, team president of the Toronto Argonauts, the president of The Sports Network (TSN).
Pelley grew up in Etobicoke, a suburb of Toronto, Ontario. He was a student at Martingrove Collegiate Institute, where he also played as a running back in the Etobicoke Minor Football League. After graduation, he first went on to study at Trinity College London. He then returned to Canada, attending the Radio and Television Arts Program (RTA) at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute (now Toronto Metropolitan University).
During his Ryerson studies, he did television reporting for the station that eventually became Omni Television, worked for the City TV network with sportscaster Pete Gross, and worked as an assistant editor for SportsCentre with TSN. [2]
After graduating from Ryerson, Pelley worked in several different positions at TSN, beginning with his assistant editor post (which he started while completing his schooling at Ryerson), eventually becoming the president of the company. [2]
In the early 2000s, he was asked by the then-owners of the Toronto Argonauts, Howard Sokolowski and David Cynamon, to become the team president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Football League team (succeeding Dan Ferrone). He accepted the position in 2003, and was made CEO in 2004. During his time as team president, the Argonauts won the 92nd Grey Cup, their first CFL championship in seven years. [2] Pelley left the Argonauts in 2007, and was replaced by joint team presidents Pinball Clemons and Brad Watters.
From 2007 to 2010, he was the president of Canada’s Olympic broadcast media consortium for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver while employed as the executive vice president of strategic planning at the CTV Television Network. [3]
On 7 September 2010, he became the president of Rogers Media, a subsidiary of Rogers Communications. [4] During his tenure with Rogers, he successfully negotiated a $5.232 billion contract with the National Hockey League (on 25 February 2014) giving Rogers the Canadian broadcast rights for all NHL games (including playoffs) until 2026. [5]
On 17 April 2015, he resigned as the president of Rogers Media to become the commissioner and chief executive officer of the PGA European Tour. [6]
On January 11, 2024, it was announced that he was hired as president and CEO of MLSE. Pelley began his tenure with MLSE on April 2, 2024. [7]
CBC Television has aired National Hockey League (NHL) broadcasts under the Hockey Night in Canada brand that is primarily associated with its Saturday night NHL broadcasts throughout its history in various platforms.
The Toronto Argonauts are a professional Canadian football team competing in the East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL), based in Toronto, Ontario. Founded in 1873, the team is the oldest existing professional sports team in North America still using its original name, as well as the oldest-surviving team in both the modern-day CFL and East Division. The team's origins date back to a modified version of rugby football that emerged in North America in the latter half of the 19th century. The Argonauts played their home games at Rogers Centre from 1989 until 2016, when the team moved to BMO Field, the fifth stadium site to host the team.
The Sports Network (TSN) is a Canadian English language discretionary sports specialty channel owned by CTV Specialty Television, owned jointly by Bell Media (70%) and ESPN Inc. (30%), itself a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. TSN was established by the Labatt Brewing Company in 1984 as part of the first group of Canadian specialty cable channels. TSN is the largest specialty channel in Canada in terms of gross revenue, with a total of CA$400.4 million in revenue in 2013.
Sportsnet is a Canadian English-language discretionary sports specialty channel owned by Rogers Sports & Media. It was established in 1998 as CTV Sportsnet, a joint venture between CTV, Liberty Media, and Rogers Media. CTV parent Bell Globemedia then was required to divest its stake in the network following its 2001 acquisition of competing network TSN. Rogers then became the sole owner of Sportsnet in 2004 after it bought the remaining minority stake that was held by Fox.
Brian P. Burke is an American-Canadian ice hockey executive, currently the Executive Director of the Professional Women's Hockey League Players Association (PWHLPA). He previously worked in the NHL league office, including as the director of hockey operations, and worked as general manager of the Hartford Whalers, Vancouver Canucks, Anaheim Ducks—with whom he won the Stanley Cup in 2007—and Toronto Maple Leafs, as well as president of hockey operations for the Leafs, Calgary Flames, and Pittsburgh Penguins. Burke was general manager for the silver-medalist United States national team for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. He is a member of Rugby Canada's board of directors. Burke was inducted into the Rhode Island Hockey Hall of Fame in 2019.
Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd. (MLSE) is a professional sports and commercial real estate company based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. With assets that include franchises in four of the six major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada, it is the largest sports and entertainment company in Canada, and one of the largest in North America.
Martingrove Collegiate Institute is a semestered public secondary school in Etobicoke, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It opened in 1966 and is currently overseen by the Toronto District School Board.
BMO Field is an outdoor stadium located at Exhibition Place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Constructed on the former Exhibition Stadium site and first opened in 2007, it is the home field of Toronto FC of Major League Soccer (MLS) and the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League (CFL). BMO Field is owned by the City of Toronto and managed by Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, which owns both Toronto FC and the Argonauts. The stadium's naming rights are held by the Bank of Montreal, which is commonly branded as "BMO".
Richard A. Peddie is a Canadian businessman. He is the former president and CEO of Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment.
Scott Moore is a Canadian television executive. He is the former director of CBC Sports and head of production for Rogers Communications' Sportsnet and NHL properties. He was appointed on March 1, 2007, succeeding Nancy Lee. On November 9, 2010, Moore left CBC and on the following day he was named president of broadcasting for Rogers Media.
Dave Randorf is a Canadian sportscaster who serves as the play-by-play announcer for the television broadcasts of the National Hockey League's Tampa Bay Lightning. He is best known for his work at TSN hosting the network's Canadian Football League studio show as well as TSN's and CTV's coverage of figure skating. He also did play-by-play for the NHL on TSN, World Hockey Championship, and the National Lacrosse League on TSN.
Paul Romanuk is a Toronto sportscaster and writer. He was born in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada.
CTV Sports was the division of the CTV Television Network responsible for sports broadcasting. The division existed in its own right from 1961 to 2001; between 1998 and 2001, CTV Sports also operated a cable sports network, CTV Sportsnet, now owned by Rogers Media and known simply as Sportsnet.
Sports broadcasting contracts in Canada include:
Chris Cuthbert is a Canadian sportscaster. He currently serves as the lead play-by-play commentator with CBC Sports/Sportsnet for Hockey Night in Canada, and calls most national and regional games for the Toronto Maple Leafs on the network. Formerly, he worked for TSN, NBC, and CBC Sports in a multitude of roles. He and Glen Suitor were the lead broadcast team for the CFL on TSN from 2008 to 2019 before Cuthbert gave that lead play-by-play role to Rod Smith.
Tom Anselmi is a Canadian sports executive. He is currently employed by the OEG serving as the President of Business Operations and Chief Operating Officer. He had previously served as a Business Manager with the Ottawa Senators and as the President and Chief operating officer for Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment from 2011 to 2013. Anselmi is an alumnus of Ryerson Polytechnical Institute and University of Saskatchewan.
NHL on Sportsnet is the blanket title for presentations of the National Hockey League broadcast held by a Canadian media corporation, Rogers Communications, showing on its television channel Sportsnet and other networks owned by or affiliated with its Rogers Media division, as well as the Sportsnet Radio chain. Sportsnet previously held the national cable rights for NHL regular season and playoff games from 1998 to 2002. In November 2013, Rogers reached a 12-year deal to become the exclusive national television and digital rightsholder for the NHL in Canada, beating out both CBC Sports and TSN.
Michael Friisdahl is the executive chairman of Signature Aviation, a multinational aviation services company. Friisdahl was appointed in February 2022 after previously serving as the president and CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment. He was responsible for overseeing MLSE's sports properties which includes ownership of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Toronto Raptors, Toronto FC, Toronto Argonauts, Toronto Marlies, Raptors 905 and Toronto FC II.
On April 19, 2011, after ESPN, Turner Sports, and Fox Sports placed bids, NBC Sports announced it had reached a ten-year extension to its U.S. television contract with the NHL worth nearly $2 billion over the tenure of the contract. The contract would cover games on both NBC and sister cable channel Versus, which became part of the NBC Sports family as the result of Versus parent Comcast's controlling purchase of NBC Universal earlier in 2011.