The Graeme Roustan Show: Sean Cohan

The Hockey News' Money and Power 2025 hockey business annual is available at THN.com/free, featuring the annual 100 people of power and influence list.

W. Graeme Roustan, owner and publisher of The Hockey News, sat down with special guests for peer-to-peer conversations also featured in the issue, including Bell Media president Sean Cohan.

Here's their full conversation in The Graeme Roustan Show:

Read along with an excerpt from their discussion:

W. GRAEME ROUSTAN: Bell has a long history in the hockey industry. You’re a big hockey fan yourself. Maybe we can start talking a little bit about you and where you come from?

SEAN COHAN: I was born in the New York area and grew up on the south shore of a suburban place outside New York called Long Island. I’ve always been a sports fan and a little bit of media – TV, film, music. I’m the son of a retired music teacher. I had, I would say, remedial, at best, hockey skills growing up. I played street hockey. Pretty poor skills, I would say. I mirrored my pretty remedial skills in basketball; not much of a shooter. I was not much of a hitter in baseball, but it didn’t stop me from trying it and doing a lot of it.

Fast forward. I had a career in and around media in the Northeast or headquartered in the Northeastern U.S., but global. It was roughly 15 years at A&E running the History Channel, Lifetime and A&E around the world. I also had a handful of years at Nielsen, looking at measurement and data analytics around the world and doing a lot of business up here in Canada. A year ago, I joined Bell Media, running Bell Media, and as an officer of BCE.

My family’s in Toronto now. They joined me four months ago. I’ve got two young girls, nearly three and 10, my daughters, and we’re just very happy to be up here.

WGR: Your background in media is extensive, and it makes all the sense in the world why Bell went out and found you and put you in charge over here. Bring us up to speed on where Bell is in hockey.

SC: I’ll start out big-picture and say we think TSN is, on many scores, far and away the leader in sports in Canada. It is the home of sports in Canada, and Bell Media and BCE couldn’t be more committed to TSN. It’s a cornerstone of what we do; it’s a cornerstone of our growth. Sports continues to be a critical part of what we do and a critical part of entertaining, delighting, challenging and informing media consumers around Canada and the world.

As far as hockey goes, as you know, we are super-committed to hockey, whether that’s about 100 women’s games, whether that’s a couple hundred NHL games, whether that’s a host of international games.

WGR: How important is it for the future of TSN and Bell Media to really focus on women’s hockey but also women’s sports across the board?

SC: Really important. It’s such an interesting and really exciting time for women’s sports. It’s this inflection point where, really after a bunch of years of work and building, it’s really taking off. I think it’s poised to grow a ton, particularly off the back of leagues like the WNBA and the PWHL.

In terms of the role women’s sports and women’s hockey plays in what we do, we’ve had a bunch of years where we’ve been committed to women’s sports well before I ever got anywhere close to this place. It’s a big part of the mix. It’s a big part of what we do. And we’re super-committed to it going forward.

WGR: Recently, Bell made a decision to sell its stake in MLSE, and some took it as though Bell was leaving the hockey world. Can you just sort of lay it out for people from your point of view?

SC: A lot of the history of this predates me, but I look at it this way: back in 2012, Bell invested $500 million in its 37.5-percent stake of MLSE. And we got an opportunity where I think everybody in the transaction wins. At least, that’s my estimation. We were able to sell to Rogers that same asset that we had purchased for $500 million for $4.7 billion, which is a greater than 9x return.

We’re a publicly traded business, an iconic Canadian company that is owned by a ton of different Canadians, North Americans and citizens of the world. And we have a responsibility to maximize shareholder value. And in a world where we can sell something for 9x plus and maintain the precious metal or gem that is content-access IP, a big part of that being hockey, for 20 years, we felt like it was a business move that we had to make.

For this conversation, more interviews and a deep look into the world of the hockey business, check out The Hockey News' Money and Power 2025 issue, available at THN.com/free.