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When Keith Pelley was living in Europe for a decade, running that version of the PGA Tour, he would often tell people of his love of Canada and Toronto.
He said it from the heart. He said it with a certain pride and reverence. Living elsewhere, he never stopped missing the city he grew up in, the place he called home.
Nobody was a bigger ambassador for Toronto and Canada than Pelley. He used to call it the best city and the best country. A lot of us, living here, used to say the same thing.
Pelley moved back to Toronto last April, after 10 years away, returning to a city he knew but didn’t know — not necessarily the one he remembered best.
Like a lot of us, he hears it now way too often. That the city isn’t what it used to be. That the country isn’t what it used to be. That there is more to worry about, more to dislike, more to be bothered by than ever before.
“The way they speak about our country and the way they speak about our city is not with the reverence I spoke about for 10 years in Europe,” Pelley said Wednesday, as guest speaker of the Toronto Board of Trade. Then he said what you normally wouldn’t hear at a Board of Trade lunch.
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SIMMONS: CEO Keith Pelley is hoping World Cup can help elevate Toronto back to being a great city Back to video
“It makes me sad. It’s not the city that it used to be, not the country that it was 10 years ago.”
Pelley is the CEO of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment Ltd., the largest sporting conglomerate in North America, maybe the world. MLSE owns the Maple Leafs, the Raptors, the Argos, the Marlies, Toronto FC, a bunch of restaurants and real estate and just about anything else it wants to own. And what Pelley wants more than anything is for Toronto to return to being the Toronto he remembers, the city he reveres, and for Canada to return to being the country he adores.
And it is rare to hear anyone in a position of such power and prominence to be this honest, be this glib and this outspoken in a format such as this.
And then his eyes lit up and began to dance when he spoke of the World Cup of Soccer coming to Toronto and Canada in 2026. And all it can do for the city, for the people, for the country.
“This isn’t just a sporting event,” said Pelley, quick to point out that MLSE is not making “one penny on the World Cup” which we may or not believe.
“Six hundred and three days to go,” said Pelley, who called the World Cup the secret sauce for the city.
“Are we behind (in the planning)?” he added. “Absolutely?”
And then he spoke about the power of sport as a community builder and healer.
“We have an opportunity to do something special,” he said. “So we can talk about (our) city in the greatest of terms. It’s like having six Super Bowls. Can you imagine that?”
The Board of Trade is hardly the platform for anyone to wonder about the state of its city. But you can hardly go anywhere these days without someone talking about what Toronto used to be. Before all of the traffic. Before the housing costs and homelessness. Before the constant construction. Before the crime, the hatred and the antisemitism. Before this mayor.
A lot of ‘befores’ that hit too close to home for far too many of us. The city we used to love and brag about. The city we’re not quite so sure about any longer.
Pelley understands all of the responsibility that goes along with his job at MLSE, all of that money and all those games and teams that have fallen short of expectations. He has had, at times, to speak about the Leafs and their annual playoff failures that he had nothing to do with. He has to speak about the nearly irrelevant Raptors and the beginning of the rebuild; the disaster that has become Toronto FC, the wayward soccer team going nowhere; and the Argos, the team that wins more and draws less than almost anyone in their corporation. That’s all on his plate.
tap here to see other videos from our team.
Yet when they opened the floor to questions on Wednesday, there wasn’t even one matter brought up about the Leafs, the Raptors or anything to do with the Toronto teams. Normally, the business crowd and the sports crowd mixes well together at one of these. This crowd was more business and less sports, or maybe just shy to put their hands up and ask anything in public.
It’s hard to go anywhere these days in this city and not be asked a derisive question about the Leafs. I get it all the time. But Pelley got a free pass Wednesday about anything that wasn’t the World Cup.
He did mention the Leafs while talking to the room. “I think they haven’t won since 1967,” he said. “That’s what I keep hearing … I really want to feel that (championship) again.”
Pelley was president of the Argos when they won the Grey Cup in 2004. He was in Europe when the Raptors captured the NBA title in 2019 and when TFC won an MLS championship before that. He even played minor soccer in Etobicoke growing up, when the fastest kid on his team was a blonde-haired young guy named Doug Ford.
Pelley was the head of the consortium that televised the Vancouver Olympics and he’s still like a proud papa when he talks about Sidney Crosby scoring the winning goal for Team Canada and 26.5 million people tuning in to watch at lesast part of that game. The largest audience in Canadian television history.
“That’s sport bringing people together,” said Pelley. “There will be 750 million-plus people watching Canada’s first game in the World Cup in 2026.
“Now it’s all on us to get behind it … I don’t think the city knows what we’re about to get into. I don’t think we understand. I would love the legacy of the World Cup to be that football, in such an ethnic city, elevated us to a whole different level. Wouldn’t that be something?”
ssimmons@postmedia.com
twitter.com/simmonssteve
When Keith Pelley was living in Europe for a decade, running that version of the PGA Tour, he would often tell people of his love of Canada and Toronto.
He said it from the heart. He said it with a certain pride and reverence. Living elsewhere, he never stopped missing the city he grew up in, the place he called home.
Nobody was a bigger ambassador for Toronto and Canada than Pelley. He used to call it the best city and the best country. A lot of us, living here, used to say the same thing.
Pelley moved back to Toronto last April, after 10 years away, returning to a city he knew but didn’t know — not necessarily the one he remembered best.
Like a lot of us, he hears it now way too often. That the city isn’t what it used to be. That the country isn’t what it used to be. That there is more to worry about, more to dislike, more to be bothered by than ever before.
“The way they speak about our country and the way they speak about our city is not with the reverence I spoke about for 10 years in Europe,” Pelley said Wednesday, as guest speaker of the Toronto Board of Trade. Then he said what you normally wouldn’t hear at a Board of Trade lunch.
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“It makes me sad. It’s not the city that it used to be, not the country that it was 10 years ago.”
Pelley is the CEO of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment Ltd., the largest sporting conglomerate in North America, maybe the world. MLSE owns the Maple Leafs, the Raptors, the Argos, the Marlies, Toronto FC, a bunch of restaurants and real estate and just about anything else it wants to own. And what Pelley wants more than anything is for Toronto to return to being the Toronto he remembers, the city he reveres, and for Canada to return to being the country he adores.
And it is rare to hear anyone in a position of such power and prominence to be this honest, be this glib and this outspoken in a format such as this.
And then his eyes lit up and began to dance when he spoke of the World Cup of Soccer coming to Toronto and Canada in 2026. And all it can do for the city, for the people, for the country.
“This isn’t just a sporting event,” said Pelley, quick to point out that MLSE is not making “one penny on the World Cup” which we may or not believe.
“Six hundred and three days to go,” said Pelley, who called the World Cup the secret sauce for the city.
“Are we behind (in the planning)?” he added. “Absolutely?”
And then he spoke about the power of sport as a community builder and healer.
“We have an opportunity to do something special,” he said. “So we can talk about (our) city in the greatest of terms. It’s like having six Super Bowls. Can you imagine that?”
The Board of Trade is hardly the platform for anyone to wonder about the state of its city. But you can hardly go anywhere these days without someone talking about what Toronto used to be. Before all of the traffic. Before the housing costs and homelessness. Before the constant construction. Before the crime, the hatred and the antisemitism. Before this mayor.
A lot of ‘befores’ that hit too close to home for far too many of us. The city we used to love and brag about. The city we’re not quite so sure about any longer.
Pelley understands all of the responsibility that goes along with his job at MLSE, all of that money and all those games and teams that have fallen short of expectations. He has had, at times, to speak about the Leafs and their annual playoff failures that he had nothing to do with. He has to speak about the nearly irrelevant Raptors and the beginning of the rebuild; the disaster that has become Toronto FC, the wayward soccer team going nowhere; and the Argos, the team that wins more and draws less than almost anyone in their corporation. That’s all on his plate.
Yet when they opened the floor to questions on Wednesday, there wasn’t even one matter brought up about the Leafs, the Raptors or anything to do with the Toronto teams. Normally, the business crowd and the sports crowd mixes well together at one of these. This crowd was more business and less sports, or maybe just shy to put their hands up and ask anything in public.
It’s hard to go anywhere these days in this city and not be asked a derisive question about the Leafs. I get it all the time. But Pelley got a free pass Wednesday about anything that wasn’t the World Cup.
He did mention the Leafs while talking to the room. “I think they haven’t won since 1967,” he said. “That’s what I keep hearing … I really want to feel that (championship) again.”
Pelley was president of the Argos when they won the Grey Cup in 2004. He was in Europe when the Raptors captured the NBA title in 2019 and when TFC won an MLS championship before that. He even played minor soccer in Etobicoke growing up, when the fastest kid on his team was a blonde-haired young guy named Doug Ford.
Pelley was the head of the consortium that televised the Vancouver Olympics and he’s still like a proud papa when he talks about Sidney Crosby scoring the winning goal for Team Canada and 26.5 million people tuning in to watch at lesast part of that game. The largest audience in Canadian television history.
“That’s sport bringing people together,” said Pelley. “There will be 750 million-plus people watching Canada’s first game in the World Cup in 2026.
“Now it’s all on us to get behind it … I don’t think the city knows what we’re about to get into. I don’t think we understand. I would love the legacy of the World Cup to be that football, in such an ethnic city, elevated us to a whole different level. Wouldn’t that be something?”
ssimmons@postmedia.com
twitter.com/simmonssteve
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Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.