Owen Welsh – Business Award 2026
Alumni of Distinction Awards > 2026 > Owen Welsh
Vice President, Growth & Innovation
Canadian Football League (CFL)
Sport Business Management, 2009
Owen Welsh’s journey from Algonquin College’s Sports Business Management program to a vice presidency at the Canadian Football League (CFL) was, like the game itself, filled with grit, fumbles and clutch plays.
Welsh, who began thinking about a career in sports while in high school, pursued a University of Ottawa degree in human kinetics before enrolling at the College. He said that the Sports Business Management program was exactly what he wanted — hands-on, informative and focused on getting learners employed. The internship component was especially important, as it provided him with opportunities that laid the foundation for the career to come.
“I learned that in sports you needed to have sales experience, you needed to have hands-on experience and you needed to have the right brand on your résumé,” Welsh says. “So for me, my strategy was do the program and get a really good internship in Ottawa, [which was made easier] because there was only one major sports team at the time, and it was the Ottawa Senators.”
The Senators internship was a hot commodity in his class, with everyone vying for it. Welsh decided to lean on the network he had already established, reaching out to a former University of Ottawa classmate who worked at the Scotiabank Place (now Canadian Tire Centre). This led to an internship in ticket sales being created specifically for him.
“At first, I was basically sitting in the bunker and they just gave me a phone book and a list of people to call and they said, ‘just call and see if you can sell tickets,’” recalled Welsh. “For the first couple of months, I wasn’t finding success. I was picking up the phone, calling people. No one was answering and they didn’t want to buy, so I wasn’t really getting that sales experience that I was looking for.”
After coming back to the internship from Christmas break, with three weeks left in his term with the Senators, Welsh told his managers that he wanted “real deal sales experience” and asked for a target to hit. He was given a goal of around $5000 in sales and was left alone to accomplish it, which forced him to get creative.
“I started calling fraternities and sororities and people in my network that had connections to different groups. And after three weeks, I ended up overshooting the target, [and] I think I sold $7500,” said Welsh. “I knew that if I had just checked the box on stuff and just finished up, I wouldn’t get the right reference, I wouldn’t push myself, I wouldn’t rise to the occasion. And I’m so glad that I did that because it gave me the confidence that I needed.”
As the internship concluded, Welsh again leaned on his growing network to find work in Toronto, the hotspot for professional sports in Canada. A contact he had made at the College ended up connecting him with International Management Group (IMG), one of the largest sports marketing agencies in Canada. Welsh drove the five hours to do the interview and was hired on the spot for a nine-month internship.
Initially concerned that the move to Toronto may interfere with his final term of study at the College, then-professor Dave Best (now retired) made sure that Welsh had the flexibility he needed to both get the job and graduate the program.
Near the end of the IMG internship, Welsh was connected through a colleague to the NBA for a job opportunity. While the interview didn’t go his way, Welsh connected with NBA Canada’s manager of sales, who two months later got him in touch with the Toronto Blue Jays.
“I didn’t know anything about baseball, didn’t even play it growing up,” said Welsh. “I did three rounds of interviews there, they went great, and I landed the job. And that changed my career forever. I was at the Blue Jays for four years in partnerships and working with some amazing people; it was the best job. I was 23. I had to be at every game. It was just so much fun!”
Welsh’s experience at the Blue Jays saw him manage partnerships with major companies like Nike, Coca-Cola, Rogers and UPS. As his experience grew, so too did Welsh’s desire to expand both his career and his family. Knowing he wanted to get married to his then-girlfriend, he decided to take another leap, this time landing —finally — at the CFL.
“Joining the CFL was a really important career decision for me. It gave me the opportunity to grow, take on new challenges and learn from some great mentors along the way,” said Welsh. “One of those mentors encouraged me to really invest in the industry and develop expertise in sponsorship marketing. As my role at the CFL evolved, including leading partnership business development starting in 2017, I was fortunate to gain experience that helped shape my career. Being named one of Canada’s Sports Business Awards’ 5 to Watch in 2019 was something I was genuinely grateful for — more than anything, it felt like an acknowledgement that I was on the right path and that the work I was putting in was making an impact.”
Welsh has led his team through the challenges of COVID and into consecutive years of revenue growth, navigating both highs and lows with grit and perseverance. Since 2025, he has served as the CFL’s vice president of growth and innovation, a role that brings together his background in commercial strategy, sales and partnerships and applies it across the League’s key growth priorities. His portfolio includes sports betting, flag football, league-wide commercial initiatives, Grey Cup opportunities and other emerging areas designed to grow the CFL’s business, fanbase and long-term relevance.
Welsh’s ability to spot opportunity — and then put in the work to make something of it — has been a defining theme throughout his career. His advice to the next generation is simple: become great at what you do by putting yourself in the deep end and learning to trust yourself. Walk through the doors that open, listen to your instincts and, perhaps most importantly, never underestimate the value of the people you meet along the way. “Everybody needs a little bit of luck, a little bit of help,” Welsh says. “And then you’ve got to make the most out of it.”