Tod Leiweke Named VenuesNow 2026 All-Star Honoree

Tod Leiweke CEO Seattle Kraken / One Roof Sports & Entertainment

HIGH FIVE Tod Leiweke has worked for teams in the NHL, NFL, NBA, MLS as well as the PGA.

Sports course through the veins of Tod Leiweke. Working more than four decades in a wide variety of capacities, this top sports executive has helped guide teams across leagues, including the NHL, NFL, NBA, MLS and more.

In the process, Leiweke has built an illustrious career that’s included stops at such storied franchises as the Golden State Warriors, the Vancouver Canucks, the Minnesota Wild and the Tampa Bay Lightning, along with stints at the NFL and the PGA’s First Tee. The Kraken, however, marked his return to the Emerald City after working from 2002-2010 as the CEO of NFL’s Seattle Seahawks and MLS’ Sounders.

After working from 2015-2018 as the COO of the NFL, Leiweke was part of them team to bring hockey to Seattle. In December 2018, the NHL’s Board of Governors unanimously awarded an expansion franchise to the ownership team. The Kraken would take the ice on Oct. 23, 2021, at the world-class Climate Pledge Arena as part of a $1.15B overhaul and complete rebuild of the former Key Arena.

“We built an arena that’s the most beautiful in the world. We solved a 30-year problem,” Leiweke said with pride at a Seattle University commencement speech in 2024, according to The Hockey News. “We’ve made Seattle a hockey town. Our training center just five miles from here (Kraken Community Iceplex) drew a million people since it opened.”

At the time, the naysaying Leiweke and his team faced included disbelief that the project could be privately funded, that engineers could lift and preserve the arena’s iconic roof, that hockey would work in Seattle and that the acoustics could be up to snuff.

“Don’t let people tell you that things can’t be,” he continued. “Don’t listen to them … Our best days are in front of us. It’s up to us to make it happen.”

True to form: Leiweke and his team are currently working on a non-profit community project to rebuild Memorial Stadium; at the same time his One Roof Sports & Entertainment have put in a bid to return an NBA team to Seattle after the Supersonics in 2008 relocated to Oklahoma City.

VenuesNow 2026 All-Star Hub

_Originally reported by [Pollstar](https://news.pollstar.com/2026/09/21/venuesnow-2026-all-star-honoree-tod-leiweke/)._