Rogers has announced that Keith Pelley, president of Rogers Media, will be leaving the company at the end of the summer. Pelley will move on to lead The European Tour, a global golf tour spanning 26 countries, as commissioner and CEO.
“Keith has done a tremendous job for the company over the past five years and I’m delighted for him and his family,” said Rogers CEO and president Guy Laurence, in a statement.
“He’s been a key player on the NHL file and has done a terrific job of reinventing the way Canadians experience the NHL. Under his leadership, Sportsnet is on the cusp of becoming the number one sports media brand in Canada.”
As head of Rogers Media for the past four and a half years, Pelley oversaw CityTV, Sportsnet, OMNI and The Shopping Channel, as well as 55 radio stations, 50 consumer and trade publications, and Rogers’ significant investments in the Blue Jays and Maple Leafs. He was instrumental in executing Rogers’ partnership with the NHL and building Rogers sports and entertainment properties across television, digital, print (with the new Sportsnet magazine), and mobile (with NHL GamePlus and other apps).
He also led the launch of Rogers’ streaming service Shomi, and was deeply involved in a deal with Vice Media to launch a co-branded content development studio in Canada. Mobile magazine app Next Issue also launched under his watch.
Pelley got his start in the industry as an on-air personality for OMNI Television in 1984. He joined TSN as an editorial intern in 1986, working his way up to senior news producer and event producer before leaving TSN in 1994 to serve a stint as a game producer for Fox Sports in New York.
Pelley made his return to Toronto in 1997 as TSN’s senior vice president of programming and production. In 2001, he was appointed president of the organization, where he remained until 2003, when he became president and CEO of the Toronto Argonauts Football Club, where he was a part of the team’s 2004 championship and helped triple average attendance over his four year tenure.
In 2007, he became the president of Canada’s Olympic Media Broadcast Consortium, where he led the acclaimed cross-platform coverage of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, which won a record seven Gemini awards and was one of the top five most-watched events in Canadian television history. In April 2010, he moved to CTVglobemedia as president for a period of five months, until his move to Rogers Media as president in September of the same year.
Pelley said in a statement that the position at The European Tour is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that he’s dreamed about. “I know I’ll never be a professional golfer, so this is the next best thing,” he said.
“Rogers is a terrific company with the best collection of media assets in the industry,” he said. “Guy has a clear vision for the company and it’s been exciting to be a part of it… We’ve got a great team at Rogers Media, they know what we need to do.”
