Jack Kent Cooke (October 25, 1912 – April 6, 1997) was a Canadian American businessman in broadcasting and professional sports.

Born in Hamilton, Ontario, Cooke moved with his family to The Beaches area of Toronto in 1921, where he attended Malvern Collegiate Institute.

With the financial backing of J. P. Bickell, Cooke purchased CKCL (under Toronto Broadcasting Co.) in 1945, changing the call letters to CKEY.

In 1951, Cooke ventured into sports, acquiring the minor league Toronto Maple Leafs baseball club.

Upon purchasing the team, Cooke informed the media that the Maple Leafs would be integrated immediately, signing second baseman Charlie White and pitcher-outfielder Leon Day within two weeks of the acquisition.

White and Day paved the way for future black Maple Leafs like Sam Jethroe, Elston Howard, Earl Battey, Dave Pope, Humberto Robinson, Connie Johnson, Lou Johnson, Mack Jones, Marshall Bridges, and Reggie Smith – not to mention later generations of black players who starred with Toronto's eventual Major League Baseball franchise, the Blue Jays.

Cooke transformed the games from straight athletic contests into complete entertainment packages, with a long list of special promotions and celebrity appearances.

While owning the Maple Leafs baseball team, Cooke set his sights on bringing a major league club to Toronto.

On the field, Cooke's Maple Leafs were an International League powerhouse, finishing in first place during the regular season four times, capturing the 1960 Governors' Cup as playoff champions, and leading the circuit in attendance every year between 1952 and 1956.

Between 1953 and 1959, Cooke operated the Leafs without a major-league affiliation, buying or trading for the contracts of most of the players on his roster from MLB clubs.

Veteran minor-league slugger Rocky Nelson, who won the IL's "Triple Crown" in 1958, rode his two-year Toronto stay to one final big-league opportunity with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1959, where he became one of the stars of their 1960 world champions.

There had been nine bids in a highly competitive process, and the licence was awarded to a consortium of Aldred-Rogers Broadcasting and the Telegram Corporation, which launched CFTO-TV.

With the support of U.S. Representative Francis E. Walter (D-Pa.), Cooke quickly became a citizen when both houses of Congress and President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved a waiver of the usual five-year waiting period.

[14][15] As owner of the Redskins, the team won three Super Bowls under head coach Joe Gibbs (in 1982, 1987, and 1991), the franchise's first championships since the 1940s.

Cooke won the franchise, and paid $2 million for the new Los Angeles NHL club, which he called the "Kings."

Cooke had been told that there were more than 300,000 former Canadians living within a three-hour drive of Los Angeles and remarked, "Now I know why they left Canada: They hate hockey!"

[25] Cooke's third marriage on July 24, 1987, to Suzanne Elizabeth Martin, a college dropout aged 31 at the time and 43 years his junior, was even shorter at 73 days.

[27] Cooke agreed to marry Martin if she signed a prenuptial agreement and aborted the first-trimester fetus she was carrying (as a result of having skipped taking one or two birth control pills).

[28][29] In Fauquier County Circuit Court, a judge rejected Martin's request that he ignore the prenuptial agreement, and improve her financial settlement in which she received a $75,000 ($201,000 in current dollar terms) annual stipend, a Jaguar, and the use for five years of an apartment in the Watergate complex.

They were divorced in late 1993 after she made headlines in September by driving drunk in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C., with a man holding onto the hood and pounding on the windshield of her car.

[35] "The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation is dedicated to advancing the education of exceptionally promising students who have financial need."

"[37][25] The scholarship program available to high-achieving high school seniors with financial need who seek to attend and graduate from the nation's best four-year colleges and universities.

[38] Cooke, an autodidact who didn't have the opportunity to get a college education due to the Great Depression, was a longtime supporter of the UNCF.

[39] He was described as a lover of the written word, and his commitment explicitly sought to "support the dreams of the next generation of big thinkers that came from challenging backgrounds, regardless of race, creed, color, gender, or national origin.