Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment
in Toronto, CanadaCategory: Attraction
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50 Bay St, Toronto, ON M5J 2L2, Canada Print route »
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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.
The primary holdings of the company are its major sports franchises, the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League, Toronto Raptors of the National Basketball Association, Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League, and Toronto FC of Major League Soccer, as well as their minor league farm teams, the Toronto Marlies of the American Hockey League (AHL), Raptors 905 of the NBA G League and Toronto FC II of the United Soccer League, respectively.
In addition, it owns the Scotiabank Arena (originally named the Air Canada Centre), the home arena of the Maple Leafs and Raptors. MLSE also manages or has invested in several other sports facilities including BMO Field, home of Toronto FC, the Toronto Argonauts and Toronto FC II; Coca-Cola Coliseum, home of the Marlies; MasterCard Centre, the practice facility of the Maple Leafs and Marlies; BioSteel Centre, the practice facility for the Raptors; BMO Training Ground, practice facility for Toronto FC and Toronto FC II and home of the TFC Academy; and Lamport Stadium, home of Toronto FC II and practice facility for the Argonauts.
MLSE was founded by Conn Smythe in 1931 as Maple Leaf Gardens Limited (MLGL) to act as a holding company for the Maple Leafs and their planned new arena Maple Leaf Gardens, from which the company got its name. Smythe transferred his ownership of the Leafs to the company in exchange for shares in MLGL, and sold shares in the holding company to the public to help fund construction of the arena. While initially primarily a hockey company, with ownership stakes in a number of minor and junior hockey clubs including the Toronto Marlboros of the Ontario Hockey Association, the company later branched out to own the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the CFL from the late 1970s to late 1980s, before merging with the Raptors, who were constructing the Air Canada Centre at the time, and adopting their current name in 1998. The company launched Toronto FC in 2007. Most recently, the company completed its purchase of the Argonauts in January 2018.Over most of its 80 plus years of existence MLSE was a public company. Following the death of majority owner Harold Ballard in 1990, Steve Stavro led a controversial bid to buy the company and take it private. In 2012, the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan sold their 79.53% share of the company for $1.32 billion to a joint venture between Rogers Communications and Bell Canada, two of Canada's largest media companies, giving the company an equity value of CAD$1.66 billion and an enterprise value of CAD$2 billion.
