He Came With $8 and a Scrap Cart. His Grandson Sold a Maple Leafs Stake for $4.35B: The Tanenbaums

How did a Junction scrap dealer's grandson lose his 1993 bid for Toronto's NBA team, end up chairing the company that owned the Raptors and Maple Leafs, then sell the family's last share for C$4.35 billion? In August 1911, Abraham Tanenbaum arrived in west Toronto from Parczew, Poland, with $8 and began trading scrap from a pushcart. This video tells the full story: the $2 steel beam he resold for $16; the 1951 split that launched Max Tanenbaum's York Steel; Max's 1980 stroke and the missing succession plan; the lost 1993 Palestra Group bid; the 1998 merger that created MLSE; the Raptors' 2019 championship. It ends where the story stands now — Rogers took full ownership of MLSE on October 1, 2026, and Larry's Kilmer Sports owns the Toronto Tempo, Canada's first WNBA team.