Quick Facts
Biography
Keith W. Pelley (born 1964) is a sports executive who is the CEO of the PGA European Tour. He has been the president of Rogers Media, team president of the Toronto Argonauts and the president of The Sports Network (TSN).
Biography
Early life
Pelley grew up in Etobicoke in Toronto, Ontario. He played as a running back in the Etobicoke Minor Football League and was a student at Martingrove Collegiate Institute. He went to study at Trinity College London. He returned to Canada to study at Ryerson University in the "RTA" Radio and Television Arts program. While he was at the university, he did a television report for what became Omni Television, worked for the City TV network with Pete Gross and as an assistant editor for SportsCentre with TSN.
Sports executive
After graduating from Ryerson he worked full-time for TSN and eventually becoming the president of the company.
In the early 2000s he was asked by the owners of the Toronto Argonauts, Howard Sokolowski and David Cynamon, to become the team president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Football League team. He became team president in 2003 and CEO in 2004. While he was team president, the club won the 92nd Grey Cup, the first time the Argonauts had won it in seven years. He succeeded Dan Ferrone. He left the Argonauts in 2007. He was succeeded by joint team presidents, Pinball Clemons and Brad Watters.
From 2007 to 2010, he was the president of Canada’s Olympic broadcast media consortium for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and Executive Vice President of Strategic Planning at the CTV Television Network.
On 7 September 2010, he became the president of Rogers Media, a subsidiary of Rogers Communications, succeeding Tony Viner who retired. On 25 February 2014, with Rogers, he negotiated a $5.232 billion contract with the National Hockey League for Rogers to have the national rights to broadcast games in Canada for the following twelve years.
PGA European Tour
On 17 April 2015, he resigned as the president of Rogers Media and becomes the new role as the Commissioner and Chief Executive Officer of the PGA European Tour.