Stephen Bronfman

Stephen Bronfman (born in 1964) is the son of Montreal, QC-based businessman Charles Bronfman and grew up around the Montreal Expos when his father was the team's principal owner. His father decided to sell the team in 1989, but Stephen came back as a minority owner in 1999 after team principal Claude Brochu bailed out and Jeffrey Loria replaced him, while some additional local investors were brought in. He was one of the minority owners who brought suit against Loria and Commissioner Bud Selig, accusing them of conspiracy to defraud the other owners of their stake. The suit was unsuccessful, and failed to prevent the Expos' relocation to Washington, DC in 2005. However, as a result of Loria's shenanigans in trading the Expos for the Florida Marlins, Bronfman retained a tiny minority ownership share in the Marlins and even received a World Series ring following the 2003 World Series.

His early years were without much purpose, apart from a job in the Expos' marketing department and one as General Manager of the Jamestown Expos, the team's affiliate in the New York-Penn League. He was still in his early 20's without any significant accomplishments to his name when his father decided to sell the team, which may be why he did not get the opportunity to take over for him in spite of his obvious interest in baseball. After his father got out of the baseball business, Stephen became more focused, completed a university degree and became involved in real estate and other economic activities through the Claridge Investment Group, including concert promotion. His return as a minority owner came in 1999, and at this point he was using his own money, not his father's.

In 2010, he made an unsuccessful bid to purchase the Montreal Canadiens of the NHL. Around that time, his name began to be mentioned as part of a group of local businessmen who were looking into bringing major league baseball back to the city. The group was treated with derision at first, but that began to change after a series of successful pre-season exhibition games featuring the Toronto Blue Jays, staged at Stade Olympique starting in 2014. He became the spokesman on business issues of the "Montreal Baseball Project", alongside former Expos player Warren Cromartie. In 2017, before the staging of the fourth series of exhibition games, he announced that the group had now met all conditions set by MLB to be considered for team ownership, including amassing sufficient capital for either an expansion franchise or buying an existing team and relocating it to Montreal. He also indicated that the group had identified a number of options for the construction of a new ballpark and that the ball was now in Commissioner Rob Manfred's court. As a perfectly bilingual Montrealer with deep roots both in baseball and in the community, Bronfman was a perfect spokesperson, although it was likely that he would only be a minority partner in any future ownership group.

There were more news in the first few months of 2019, as it was revealed in rapid succession that Bronfman's group was making a bid for a prominent site near downtown Montreal to build a ballpark, the Peel Basin, and was also proposing to have Montreal serve as a second home for the Tampa Bay Rays, with half of the schedule being played in Montreal. This arrangement would serve as a way not to break the punitive lease that tied the team to Tropicana Field until 2017, while still increasing attendance. If it were to go through, the arrangement could potentially last until the full transfer of the team at the end of its lease. This plan was under discussion for a couple of years and had more detractors than proponents given some obvious logistical barriers. It was finally killed on January 20, 2022, when MLB formally stated that it would never support such a project. However, Bronfman was not deterred and claimed that he would continue to work to return baseball to Montreal.

Like his father, Bronfman is very involved in charitable causes, including arts promotion and environmental projects. He is also close to the Liberal Party of Canada, being one of the principal fundraisers for Justin Trudeau when he was elected Prime Minister of Canada in the fall of 2015. However, he has also been linked to some dodgy offshore investments in Caribbean tax havens, although he has vehemently denied accusations of wrong-doing.

Further Reading

• Vincent Brousseau-Pouliot, Denis Lessard et Alexandre Pratt: "Retour des Expos: nos Z'Amours à temps partiel ?", La Presse, February 22, 2019. [1]
• Monte Burke: "The Other Bronfman", Forbes, August 19, 2006. [2]
• Frédéric Daigle: "Montréal est prêt pour un retour du baseball, selon Bronfman", La Presse, March 25, 2019. [3]
• Gabe Lacques: "MLB pulls plug on Rays' Tampa Bay-Montreal 'sister city' concept, leaving franchise's future in limbo", USA Today, January 20, 2022. [4]
• Alexandre Pratt: "Pourquoi Stephen Bronfman est-il si pressé ?", La Presse, February 16, 2020. [5]
• Alexandre Pratt: 2Les images qui faisaient rêver Stephen Bronfman", La Presse, May 2, 2024. [6]
• Konrad Yakabuski: "In Montreal, a new generation of entrepreneurs goes to bat for the return of big-league baseball", The Globe and Mail, April 7, 2017, p. B4.