The pursuit of a WNBA franchise has been a multi-decade quest for Toronto Tempo owner Larry Tanenbaum. In 2002, he and Richard Peddie, then the CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, examined the prospect of bringing a WNBA team to Toronto, but their research at the time suggested the market was not mature enough, given factors such as a large portion of potential customers leaving Toronto for the summer.
That has changed.
“Toronto is a big deal right now,” Tanenbaum said. “People still go up to their cottages, but the city of Toronto is an attractive place to be in the summertime.”
Tanenbaum said he and Joe Lacob, the Golden State Valkyries owner, spoke often over the years with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver about their respective markets procuring a WNBA franchise.
“The time was right and we took advantage of it,” said Tanenbaum, an SBJ Lifetime Achievement honoree in 2020. “My history is that I’ve been very successful in the sports business. Buying into the Maple Leafs, taking on the Raptors, and buying TFC [Toronto FC] has been good to me. So why not the WNBA? I think sports is good business.”
Patrick Lee, the Tempo’s chief financial officer and the team’s first hire in February 2024, worked doggedly on the franchise bid. Once the WNBA had identified Toronto as a potential market for expansion, Lee said the most challenging aspect of the bid was presenting documentation on what an ownership structure would look like as a stand-alone entity, rather than part of an existing NBA ownership group.
“With a stand-alone WNBA team, we had to show them how we were going to invest in the product and how we were going to be a first-class organization,” Lee said. “We can now point to the locker room at Coca-Cola Coliseum and our vision for our stand-alone performance center.”
There is some sizzle in the broader ownership group. Serena Williams was interested in investing in a team, and WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert put the tennis great in touch with Tanenbaum. “Serena has been terrific, and she was part of the interview process for [general manager] Monica [Wright Rogers],” Tanenbaum said.
Asked about making a profit, Tanenbaum said: “You always like to make a profit and work toward that, but your valuations are the ones that are really successful. You can’t count on sports teams giving you multiple cashflow dividends. That’s not the way they are structured. But valuation increases are the metrics that you look to.”
Tanenbaum, whose company Kilmer Sports Inc. owns a 25% stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (which owns the Maple Leafs, Raptors, Toronto FC and Scotiabank Arena), wanted to make it clear that he’s not focusing on the valuation of the Tempo, even as the Valkyries have soared to an $850 million valuation based on Sportico’s latest ratings of WNBA franchises.
“I’m focused on building a team, building a championship team and having a generational asset here,” Tanenbaum said. “You only think about those [valuation] numbers when you’re thinking about selling — and I’m thinking about building.”
