Newly appointed MLSE President & COO Tom Anselmi "didn’t get all the keys to the shiny kingdom," according to Damien Cox of the TORONTO STAR. Upon his promotion, it "appeared Anselmi was being rewarded for years of fine work and annointed" as the successor to former President & CEO Richard Peddie, "except he wasn't." Cox wrote, "Not quite, that is." The fact that Anselmi "was named president/COO rather than Peddie’s combined title of president/CEO apparently meant a lot." It means he is "in charge now," but it "doesn’t mean it will stay that way, which is where it gets interesting." Some "believe Anselmi almost certainly won’t get the CEO title, and that he will sometime in the coming months fall to No. 2 on the MLSE chain of command." Sources said that if it had "strictly been up to" MLSE Chair Larry Tanenbaum, Anselmi would have "immediately inherited all of Peddie’s powers." Cox wrote instead, with MLSE Owners Bell and Rogers "possibly having very different ideas of what should be done with a sports company that apparently can’t produce a winning team ... the prestigious Korn Ferry search firm is actively searching for a CEO, one that would be installed over Anselmi." Anselmi on Thursday said, "I’m a candidate for (CEO). I would want the job. ... Hopefully, the board will come to the conclusion that me and this management team are exactly what they need.” Cox wrote the "guessing game will now clearly start to revolve around whether Bell and Rogers see eye to eye on a wide variety of corporate matters, from the role of CEO, to the future of Leafs and Raptors TV, to the status" of Maple Leafs President & GM Brian Burke and Raptors President & GM Bryan Colangelo (TORONTO STAR, 9/7).
