Thirty months ago, Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment made the splashiest hire possible when they were looking for a new chief executive officer.
They swung for the fences and connected, landing Tim Leiweke from Anschutz Entertainment Group, one of the highest-profile names in the sports industry and one of the few executives for whom taking over MLSE — the multi-billion conglomerate that owns the Toronto Maple Leafs, Toronto Raptors, the Air Canada Centre and a myriad other sports, media and real estate properties — would have been considered a ‘smaller’ job.
With Leiweke on the way out after coming through the city’s sports marketplace like a tidal wave, they have gone in the opposite direction in announcing Michael Friisdahl as his replacement.
The president and CEO of Air Canada’s Leisure Group since it was founded in 2012, Friisdahl has no background in the sports industry, having spent his entire career in the travel and leisure sphere. But it could be that MLSE was looking for someone to focus on the business side of the operation first:
“Given our unparalleled sports executive and team leadership, MLSE’s CEO search focused on the appointment of a seasoned Canadian business executive to lead the organization and we’ve found exactly what we were looking for in Michael,” MLSE chairman Larry Tanenbaum said in a release. “As both an entrepreneur and a C-level executive in consumer-facing businesses at the Canadian and international level, Michael has shown an unwavering commitment to delivering for the customer. His focus will be on supporting our fans and our teams while maximizing the potential of MLSE’s iconic sports, entertainment and real estate assets.”
Friisdahl was born in Denmark, moved to Vancouver as a teenager and has been living in Toronto since the mid-’80s. And while he describes himself as a “sometimes passionate” Leaf fan, he’s clear that he’s not coming into the role to start advising Mike Babcock on lineups or Masai Ujiri on trades. He was identified as a candidate by a search firm and has no previous business ties with MLSE.
“Quite frankly they [MLSE] looked at it in totality and said what we need is an overall executive to lead the whole organization,” said Friisdahl in a telephone interview. “And then we’re going to rely on the very strong leadership in each of the sports organizations and have them focus on that. “You will not see me heavily involved in any kind of sports decisions, which is fairly obvious from my background.”
Prior to working for Air Canada, Friisdahl was CEO of Thomas Cook North America and a member of the international Group Executive Board of Thomas Cook Group plc. He was previously chief operating officer of Thomas Cook Canada and later North America. He began his career as an entrepreneur, starting his own wholesale travel business in the 1980s.
One sports industry insider said the hire was “completely off the radar.” Another called the hire “shocking.”
Insiders say the name is new to most of the team executives at MLSE.
The hire ends a long and drawn-out search for a CEO after Leiweke announced in August of 2014 that he would leave post on Jun. 30th of this year or sooner, pending a replacement being hired. When it was apparent that finding a new CEO was not going to be in place by Jun. 30th, Leiweke agreed to stay on longer. He is expected to stay on the job until the end of November with Friisdahl taking over Dec. 1st.
Accordingly, the job he’s taking — while similar in title — is thought to be different in nature than the one Leiweke had or even from what the role was under long-time CEO Richard Peddie, if only in public perception. Both of Friisdahl’s predecessors were public figures who took criticism when the teams floundered and got (some) credit when they showed progress.
“There has been no change in the responsibility of the CEO position and the consistency remains with Larry Tanenbaum as the governor for all the teams,” said Friisdahl. “From that perspective nothing’s changed, but as I said my focus will not be on providing input on the operations of the teams. That’s what the team presidents are hired to focus on.”
It was Peddie who oversaw MLSE becoming an international-scale giant in the sports industry, getting in early on the expanding MLS, opening the wildly-successful Real Sports franchise and even getting MLSE successfully into condominium development. The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan sold a 75 per cent stake in MLSE for $1.07 billion to Bell Canada and Rogers Communications in 2012. Tanenbaum has the other 25 per cent of the company.
Upon Peddie’s retirement, Leiweke was hired to fix the one glaring hole in MLSE’s balance sheet: the lack of a winning team.
His results have been mixed, but not for a lack of ambition.
He came in talking about planning a parade route for the Leafs (making himself a local punch line, briefly), a team that has just one playoff appearance since 2004. However, Leiweke has put in place respected executives with long-term deals in the form of Brendan Shanahan with the Leafs and Masai Ujiri with the Raptors. The Leafs have embraced a long, labourious rebuild that most feel was long overdue. The Raptors have made the playoffs two years running and are expected to make it again this season, although championships remain on the distant horizon. Leiweke has been remarkably aggressive with previously sad-sack Toronto FC, turning them into the highest-spending outfit in MLS, the reward being their first playoff appearance in franchise history Thursday night in Montreal.
Moreover, Leiweke has spent dearly to at least give the impression Toronto and MLSE are about winning above — or at least on par with — profit, an idea that never really resonated when they were owned by a pension fund and run by the bottom-line conscious Peddie.
The Raptors have a new $30-million practice facility slated to open in the New Year, ideally in time for the NBA all-star game being held here in February. The soccer team’s payroll has skyrocketed and BMO Field is in the midst of a $105-million expansion and renovation and the Leafs made Mike Babcock the highest-paid head coach in NHL history.
According to sources, Friisdahl’s role will be smaller and less ambitious than his predecessors, with responsibility primarily for the business side of the operation. It’s not clear what the reporting structures will be for the team’s management with regard to the CEO and the board of directors and which entity will be responsible for setting team budgets.
One thing is certain: If any of his teams win a championship on his watch, Friisdahl will instantly become the most successful CEO in MLSE history.