page_title: Jack Kent Cooke
section_title: Early foray in media and sports ownership
hierarchical_section_title: Jack Kent Cooke / Biography / Early career / Early foray in media and sports ownership
caption_attribution_description: English: Jack Kent Cooke with baseball player in Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball Club dugout, Maple Leaf Stadium, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
context_page_description: Jack Kent Cooke was a Canadian-American businessman in broadcasting and professional sports. Starting in sales, Cooke was very successful, eventually becoming a partner in a network of radio stations and newspapers in Canada. After failing at starting a major league baseball team in Toronto and being turned down to own a television station in Toronto, Cooke moved to the United States and built a business empire in broadcasting and professional sports franchises. Cooke was the owner of the Washington Redskins, the Los Angeles Lakers, the Los Angeles Kings, the Los Angeles Wolves and Toronto Maple Leafs. He also developed The Forum in Inglewood, California, and FedExField near Landover, Maryland.
context_section_description: With the financial backing of J. P. Bickell, Cooke purchased CKCL (under Toronto Broadcasting Co.) in 1945, changing the call letters to CKEY. He also continued to work with Thomson, and the two acquired the Canadian edition of Liberty magazine in 1948, naming it New Liberty. The following year, Thomson sold his half of the magazine to Cooke.
  In 1951, Cooke ventured into sports, acquiring the minor league Toronto Maple Leafs baseball club. He transformed the games from straight athletic contests into complete entertainment packages, with a long list of special promotions and celebrity appearances. With his focus on entertainment, Cooke was compared to St. Louis Browns owner Bill Veeck. Five months after becoming owner, Cooke presented a 48-page booklet to all the teams in the league, outlining his promotional strategies. He was named minor league executive of the year by The Sporting News in 1952. That same year, Cooke purchased Consolidated Press, publisher of Saturday Night magazine. He made an unsuccessful bid for The Globe and Mail newspaper in 1955.
  While owning the Maple Leafs baseball team, Cooke set his sights on bringing Major League Baseball to Toronto. He tried to purchase the St. Louis Browns, Philadelphia Athletics, and Detroit Tigers when they came up for sale, and in 1959 he became one of the founding team owners in the Continental League, a proposed third major league for professional baseball. The league disbanded a year later without ever playing a game. Cooke still hoped to get an American League expansion team in Toronto, but the city's lack of a major league venue became an impasse. Cooke sold the Maple Leafs in 1964. Before that, he had watched several team practices and observed Sparky Anderson, noting the player's leadership qualities and ability to teach younger players from all backgrounds.  Cooke encouraged Anderson to pursue a career in managing, offering him the post for the Leafs. In 1964, Anderson accepted the offer. Cooke was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985.
  In 1960, Cooke lost a bid to obtain a licence for the first privately-owned TV station in Toronto. There had been nine bids in a highly competitive process, and the licence was awarded to a consortium of Aldred-Rogers Broadcasting and the Telegram Corporation, which launched CFTO-TV.
caption: Jack Kent Cooke (right) swaps hats with Joe Becker, who managed the Maple Leafs in 1951–52.
exif: {}