Larry Tanenbaum: Toronto Tycoon

The Tanenbaum family’s rise to the top of the Canadian corporate ladder began in 1911, when Larry’s grandfather Abraham left his native Poland to begin a new life in Ontario. Abraham Tanenbaum initially eked out a living as a scrap-iron collector on the streets of the city’s industrial district before the intrepid immigrant from the old world eventually established his own steelworks, which would go on during his lifetime to become the second largest in the Toronto area.

Steely determination
His son Max, Larry’s father, took the family business baton and ran with it, setting up York Steel Construction then buying rival Kilmer Van Nostrand. A prodigious talent, Larry joined the family business as a managing director in 1968 fresh from graduating with a degree in economics from Cornell University. It was during his college years in Upstate New York, that the seeds of his future sporting passion were sown, with the young Canuck given the responsibility of coaching the faculty ice-hockey team.

Under Tanenbaum’s watch Toronto’s professional sports teams have enjoyed financial and sporting success

After learning under the wing of his father, having just turned 30 Larry was entrusted with running Kilmer Van Nostrand, a challenge he responded to with great skill and gusto. Over the next couple of decades he oversaw a run of highly successful public transport projects, including building the metro systems of Miami, Atlanta, Toronto and Caracas.

Ontario sports empire
His money and reputation made, in the mid-1990s the then 50-year-old tycoon made his first foray into the business of sport as head of a consortium seeking to bring an NBA expansion franchise to Toronto. The Toronto Raptors saw the light of day in 1995 and although it was a rival consortium that won the right to operate the franchise, Tanenbaum was undeterred, and turned his intentions instead to his first love, ice-hockey, acquiring a 12.5% stake in the Toronto Maple Leafs a year later.

The two professional sports franchises shared an arena and would merge in 1998 under the Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE) banner, an organization Tanenbaum was instrumental in founding and would become chairman of in 2003. The MLSE family of professional sports teams has subsequently expanded to include the CFL Argonauts and Toronto FC of the MLS. 

Under Tanenbaum’s watch Toronto’s professional sports teams have enjoyed financial and sporting success. Worth $2 billion, the Leafs are the NHL’s second most valuable franchise and have been a regular fixture in the Stanley Cup Playoffs since 2017, while the Toronto Raptors won their first NBA championship in 2019. Meanwhile Tanenbaum’s professional soccer club reached the MLS Cup Final three times between 2016 and 2019, winning once, and the Argonauts have lifted the Grey Cup twice in the past five years.

In September 2022, Tanenbaum was re-elected chairman of the NBA’s board of governors, with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver remarking that the 78-year-old’s “leadership, guidance, and support are greatly appreciated by me and my colleagues as well as the other team governors.”

And Canada’s richest sports owner, whose net worth exceeds $2 billion according to Forbes, could soon be set to get even richer, should the proposed sale of 20% of MSLE to a Canadian pension fund go through.