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The Toronto Maple Leafs have legitimately planned their Stanley Cup parade already

Everybody Hates Raymond

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Everybody Hates Raymond Canucks Regular

Everybody Hates Raymond

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July 15 (Bloomberg) -- Tim Leiweke, the new chief of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd., is so confident the Toronto Maple Leafs will soon end a 46-year Stanley Cup drought that he’s mapped a victory-parade route for the hockey team.

“I have it planned out and it’s going to be fantastic,” Leiweke said today in his first interview since taking over the Toronto-based sports group, which owns the city’s National Hockey League franchise, as well as the Raptors basketball team and Major League Soccer’s Toronto FC. While employees at MLSE were a little shocked he mentioned winning the Stanley Cup so soon after starting the job on June 3, Leiweke said the company has to focus on results.

“If you can all dream about that and get that in your mind, we’ll have something we’re all driven toward,” he said he told them.

Leiweke joined Maple Leaf Sports from Anschutz Entertainment Group, owned by Denver billionaire Phil Anschutz, which controls MLS’s Galaxy club and the Los Angeles Kings hockey team and is part-owner of the LA Lakers basketball franchise. In his 13 years with AEG, the Lakers and Galaxy each won four league titles and the Kings clinched one Stanley Cup.

The challenge of moving from that winning environment to loss-prone Toronto appealed to Leiweke.

Wither Raptors

“If the teams were doing well, I wouldn’t have come,” Leiweke, 56, said in Bloomberg’s Toronto office. “What intrigued me the most is the opportunity to have an organization here that can aspire to be much more successful and a greater brand than it currently is.”

The National Basketball Association’s Toronto Raptors haven’t made the playoffs since 2008 while Toronto FC has never had a winning season or qualified for the playoffs since their inception in 2007. The Maple Leafs made the playoffs for the first time since 2004 this year, only to fail to make it past the first round after giving up a three-goal lead to the Boston Bruins in the third period of game seven.

Leiweke, who stresses the importance of patience as a means to building long-term success, saw upside in that stinging loss, calling it “the best thing that could have happened to” the Leafs.

“I think they need a few ass-kickings, and that’s one that will stay with them for a long time,” he said of the players. “I think it will pay huge dividends in the long term no matter how painful it was.”

‘Nonis Fan’

Leiweke said a key component to an eventual Cup-winning Leafs squad will be general manager Dave Nonis, whose contract is being renegotiated.

“We’ll probably have some news on that very soon,” Leiweke said. “I’m a big Dave Nonis fan, and I want a culture here that is different than the one I stepped into.”

Winning is especially important for the Maple Leaf brand, which has the potential to be a Top 10 or even Top 5 global sports brand, Leiweke said.

“If you look around world, the great brands are Real Madrid, Manchester United. The Yankees, the Cowboys and the Lakers are there,” he said. “We should aspire with the Maple Leafs to be there.”

BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc., Canada’s two largest telecommunications companies, acquired control of Maple Leaf Sports in 2012 to add hundreds of hours of programming they can sell to sports fans on their smartphones and tablets. The two companies together generated profit of C$4.32 billion ($4.14 billion) last year.

‘Knee-Jerking’

Having to answer to the chiefs of two publicly traded companies is a change from Anschutz but one Leiweke says he’s happy with.

“Our owners know we’ve got to be patient and stop knee- jerking like we have in the past,” he said.

In return he’s pledged to double the value of Maple Leaf Sports in the next five to seven years.

“Winning does a lot of that, 30 percent minimum comes just from winning,” he said.

One option is to bring a National Football League team north of the border. While NFL ownership rules prevent corporations from owning teams, Leiweke said Maple Leaf Sports plans to be involved in any effort to bring a team to Canada and expects one in Toronto.

“It is a safe bet to say we’ll have some role there, to be determined, but that’s on our radar screen,” he said. “I know the league well and if we can help in that we will certainly try to help.”

Cross-Country

Maple Leaf Sports can also drive fresh profit from planned renovations to its Air Canada Centre arena and by being more creative with live entertainment and broadcasting, he said.

The company, which also owns the Toronto Marlies of the American Hockey League, is open to acquiring non-hockey-related sports franchises in Canada, Leiweke said.

The Raptors, the only NBA team in Canada, should carry the same level of cross-country appeal as the Toronto Blue Jays, the only Canadian Major League Baseball team, he said. Much like Toronto FC, the Raptors’ mediocrity has eroded fan support.

“We need to be a lot better than we are right now, because right now we’re not very good,” Leiweke said. “We have 35 million people that are our audience. We own Canada, it is our home, our territory and our region and we have to act like it.”

“I’m not even sure we deserve Toronto,” he said.

Leiweke hired Masai Ujiri, the NBA’s reigning executive of the year for his work with the Denver Nuggets, to run the Raptors after firing Bryan Colangelo in June.

‘Suck to Be Good’

“I didn’t get along with the GM of the basketball team, so we brought in somebody who sees the world the same way I do,” Leiweke said.

Next year’s NBA draft is going to have many good players the Raptors may be interested in to build up a team over time.

The owners “are very aware that we may ultimately have to, excuse my English, suck to be good,” he said. “They understand they’re going to have to be patient there.”

Leiweke brought David Beckham to the Los Angeles Galaxy, transforming the city’s soccer scene and MLS in the process. Toronto FC’s support has declined with the team’s underperformance. Its once-loyal fan base of ‘Red Army’ season ticketholders has dropped to 200 from 800 in recent years, Leiweke said.

“We had the best brand in Major League Soccer,” he said. “We’ve done a lot of damage to the brand.”

‘Significant Signing’

Maple Leaf Sports needs marquee players like Beckham to bring those fans back and improve the team’s fortunes, Leiweke said.

Multiple outlets have reported Toronto FC’s possible interest in acquiring Uruguayan international and former Chelsea striker Diego Forlan. Leiweke declined to comment on the possibility of Forlan coming to Toronto.

“We better have a significant signing or this erosion we’re currently experiencing” will continue, he said. “We’re talking to a lot of DPs,” as designated players who don’t count toward a team’s salary cap are known.

Winning above all is key to turning Maple Leaf Sports around, Leiweke said. That may mean sacrificing a few sacred cows, particularly for the Leafs, who haven’t won a Stanley Cup since grabbing four from 1962 to 1967 despite being the richest team in the NHL.

“I don’t want the players walking in the hallways of the Air Canada Centre and seeing pictures from 1962,” Leiweke said. “Get rid of those pictures and tell them, this is your legacy.”

--With assistance from Erik Schatzker in New York. Editors: Steven Frank, David Scanlan

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The Bookie Canucks Second-Line

The Bookie

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Who Had A Better Free Agency Day: Dave Nonis or a Potato?

Dave Nonis and Randy Carlyle made some controversial moves yesterday, so to figure out whether the duo deserves accolades or scorn, I thought I would compare Nonis' July 5th Leafs roster to a potato's.

Rules: The potato cannot extend the Leafs' UFAs, nor can it sign new ones. We will consider Colton Orr's extension a "July 5th" move. It will not undo trades, so Bolland and Bernier are still on the roster. Lastly, the potato must re-sign RFAs at 200% of their previous AAV - it's a potato, not a skilled negotiator. So how did our two GMs fare?

  • Colton Orr: Dave Nonis chose to re-sign the facepuncher at 925k for two years. The potato could not, and Orr walks as a UFA. Strong opener by the potato.

  • Frazer McLaren: Nonis chose to re-sign this other facepuncher - because you never want to leave home with out two wasted roster slots - for 700k over two years. The potato re-signed McLaren at 1.265M over two years. Nice job, Nonis - you beat the potato by 565k!

  • Mikhail Grabovski: Nonis opted to buyout the Leafs' strongest center, who, after spending a year playing some of the toughest zone starts and competition of any forward in the league, had certainly earned more icetime by any sane definition of the word "earned." The potato did not buy out Grabbo, which also saved a compliance buyout that the potato could use elsewhere, if it were a sentient human being.

  • Clarke MacArthur: Neither Nonis nor the potato opted to re-sign Clarke MacArthur. The strong-possession winger would go on to sign the best contract of July 5th, providing cheap play for a division rival.

  • Tyler Bozak: Nonis chose to re-sign the possession black hole and Phil Kessel-inhibitor for 5 years at 4.2M (get it? 42?). The potato could not re-sign Bozak, as it cannot enter into a legally binding agreement, so he walked as a UFA.

  • David Clarkson: Nonis signed the 30 year old Clarkson to a 7 year, 5.25M contract. The marginal upgrade on Clarke MacArthur reportedly left money on the table to come to Toronto over Edmonton, but it's hard to imagine a world where that contract doesn't haunt the Leafs in 3-4 years. The potato did not sign Clarkson.

  • Jonathan Bernier: Nonis extended Bernier to a 2 year, 2.9M extension. This is a significant extension over his previous cap hit of 1.25M, during which Bernier started just 30 games, saw 689 shots against, and posted a 914 SVP. It's clear that Bernier is being paid primarily for the hype, rather than for being a proven NHL starter. The potato, per the earlier rules, re-signed Bernier at 2.5M, saving the Leafs 400k.

  • TJ Brennan: Dave Nonis was able to acquire UFA depth defenseman TJ Brennan, likely to play the left side behind Gunnarsson, Gardiner, Liles, and maybe Fraser or, early in the year, Rielly. The potato was not able to sign TJ Brennan.

Okay, so, those are all the Leafs' moves on July 5th. Who had a better day? Let's look at the rosters, care of Cap Geek of course:

Dave Nonis:

Joffrey Lupul ($5.250m) / Tyler Bozak ($4.200m) / Phil Kessel ($5.400m)

James Van Riemsdyk ($4.250m) / Dave Bolland ($3.375m) / David Clarkson ($5.250m)

Joe Colborne ($0.000m) / Nazem Kadri ($0.000m) / Nikolai Kulemin ($2.800m)

Frazer McLaren ($0.700m) / Jay McClement ($1.500m) / Colton Orr ($0.925m)

Spencer Abbott ($0.000m) /

DEFENSEMEN

Carl Gunnarsson ($0.000m) / Dion Phaneuf ($6.500m)

Jake Gardiner ($1.117m) / Cody Franson ($0.000m)

John-Michael Liles ($3.875m) / Korbinian Holzer ($0.788m)

T.J. Brennan ($0.600m) / Mark Fraser ($0.000m)

GOALTENDERS

Jonathan Bernier ($2.900m)

James Reimer ($1.800m)

OTHER

Buyout: Darcy Tucker ($1.000m)

Buyout: Colby Armstrong ($1.000m)

RETAINED SALARY TRANSACTIONS (0.778% of upper limit)

Matt Frattin ($0.437m—0.5%) Ben Scrivens ($0.062m—0.1%)

------

SALARY CAP: $64,300,000; CAP PAYROLL: $53,729,167; BONUSES: $300,000

CAP SPACE (23-man roster): $10,870,833

Nonis has $10.9M to spend on re-signing at least 3 RFAs (Kadri, Franson, and Gunnarsson) and filling a hole at 3rd line left wing (currently Colborne) and the 13th forward (placeholder is Spencer Abbott), and Mark Fraser. Let's see how the potato did:

Joffrey Lupul ($5.250m) / Mikhail Grabovski ($5.500m) / Phil Kessel ($5.400m)

James Van Riemsdyk ($4.250m) / Nazem Kadri ($0.000m) / Nikolai Kulemin ($2.800m)

Carter Ashton ($1.040m) / Dave Bolland ($3.375m) / Joe Colborne ($0.000m)

Frazer McLaren ($1.265m) / Jay McClement ($1.500m) / Jerry D'Amigo ($1.083m)

Spencer Abbott ($0.000m) /

DEFENSEMEN

Carl Gunnarsson ($0.000m) / Dion Phaneuf ($6.500m)

Jake Gardiner ($1.117m) / Cody Franson ($0.000m)

John-Michael Liles ($3.875m) / Korbinian Holzer ($0.788m)

Jesse Blacker ($0.870m) / Mark Fraser ($0.000m)

GOALTENDERS

Jonathan Bernier ($2.500m)

James Reimer ($1.800m)

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SALARY CAP: $64,300,000; CAP PAYROLL: $51,411,667; BONUSES: $872,500

CAP SPACE (23-man roster): $13,760,833

The potato has 13.76M to re-sign the same 3 RFAs, the same 3rd line winger (again held by Colborne), the same extra forward (Abbott). The potato also has one remaining compliance buyout, which could be used to remove a near $4M player from our third pairing. Additionally, while the potato's third line seems weak, it's important to remember that Clarke MacArthur signed for just $2.21M more of a cap hit than Carter Ashton, which a sentient human being could have signed and still had more cap space than Dave Nonis.

Cast your vote: Who came away from July 5th with a better roster? Toronto Maple Leafs General Manager Dave Nonis, or a nondescript potato?

POLL

Who came out of July 5th with a better roster?

  • 21%Dave Nonis(689 votes)

  • 79%A potato(2557 votes)

3246 votes total

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