From Veterinarian to Majority Owner of the Halifax Tides

In this week’s Insights Podcast, our guest is Courtney Sherlock, the Co-Founder & CEO of the Halifax Tides FC, one of the six inaugural teams in the Northern Super League, the newly formed professional women’s soccer league. The Tides just completed their first season, and while their on-field performance did not secure them a playoff position, by every other measure, it was a highly successful first season. Attendance for the Tide games was among the highest in the league, averaging about 4,000 per game, and the team secured 2,000 season ticket holders out of the gate. The team had strong local sponsorship and merchandise sales, and the league benefited from a national television deal with both TSN and CBC Sports that broadcast a package of games in the first year of an initial two-year contract. In this podcast, Sherlock talks about her entrepreneurial journey building the Valley Veterinarian Group into six hospitals over a relatively short period of time, before selling to a national consolidator and then finding herself as the majority owner of the Tides. It is an exciting journey into professional sports for Sherlock, who admits her only previous exposure to soccer was as a soccer mom. Enjoy!