The issue with Rogers as king of sports in Toronto
On the morning the Maple Leafs opened another year with renewed aspirations — “to a degree, it’s Stanley Cup or bust,” said defenceman Morgan Rielly — Edward Rogers won. Not on the field, no. The Blue Jays are a mess, and for the last two and a half decades, that has been the only sports team Rogers owned in full.
But Rogers is now the king of Canadian sports. Rogers Communications announced Wednesday it was buying Bell’s 37.5 per cent stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment for $4.7 billion. That puts the company’s valuation at $12.53 billion, and gives Rogers control of the Leafs, the Raptors, the Blue Jays, Toronto FC and the Argonauts, plus Rogers Sportsnet, Scotiabank Arena and Rogers Centre.
Bell suddenly, unexpectedly decided to focus on the core business and pay off some debt. So now Edward Rogers — this paper previously referred to him as Ed, before a request from Rogers Communications to use his full name — controls it all.
That means a lot will change. Not everything: Bell announced that TSN will keep the rights to Leafs and Raptors games for the next 20 years, and that’s good for sports in Canada because TSN remains the gold standard in sports broadcasting in this country.
After that? Larry Tanenbaum still owns 20 per cent of the company, after selling five per cent of his stake earlier this year to a Canadian pension fund, OMERS. But Tanenbaum and Rogers have been at odds a lot over the years, and especially recently, and while Larry has managed to extend the sunset clause in
The problem with Rogers as an owner has always been that it’s a corporation, and any blood in its veins came from Edward Rogers, whose decisionmaking has never been impressive in sports
his ownership agreement before, the horizon is coming into view. Tanenbaum hasn’t been perfect, but he has been the human face of the franchises, and a wise and influential counsel. He was recently reelected as the chair of the NBA’s board of governors, and he is admired for his attention to detail.
But this is the Rogers show, now, and it’s not clear that Tanenbaum could plan for that, whether or not he saw it coming. Will Larry be bought out in 2025, or 2026, when the deadline comes to trigger a potential sale? Tanenbaum has his WNBA team, which will be a minnow compared to MLSE’s whale.
Maybe this new era won’t be a disaster, but there is nothing in the history of Rogers and sports that tells you it will truly succeed. The Jays have mostly been mediocre under Rogers. The high water mark was practically a front-office coup against ownership’s budget constraints: then-GM Alex Anthopoulos and team president Paul Beeston saved money and used it to acquire David Price and Troy Tulowitzki at the 2015 deadline, and as the Jays were embarking on their best stretch of baseball in decades, Rogers was calling Beeston’s best friend, Jerry Reinsdorf, and asking him about replacing Beeston. Oops.
So Anthopoulos left to become one of the best executives in baseball somewhere else, and the result has been the last decade of Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins, with no playoff wins and limited ambition.
On the MLSE side, Rogers was one who questioned investing in a WNBA team right before the Caitlin Clark era, and he tried to block the re-signing of Raptors team president Masai Ujiri in 2021. It was bizarre: After Ujiri visited his Muskoka cottage, Rogers called Ujiri arrogant and accused him of bringing bodyguards. Among other things, Ujiri does not travel with bodyguards. But Bell and Tanenbaum won the argument, Ujiri was resigned, and everyone has tried to appear amicable and not make it personal. The franchise has since stumbled, and now the speculation on Ujiri’s timeline with the Raptors likely starts in earnest. His contract runs through 2026.
So what would give you confidence in Rogers and sports? Rogers is promising investment, and there is some evidence on the Jays side that could happen. Shapiro convinced ownership to pay for the $300-million renovation of the Rogers Centre, a $100-million new training camp renovation in Florida, a top-10 payroll, and maybe even the pursuit of Shohei Ohtani. It turned into a sad death march of a season, but they tried.
Of course, one reason the Jays have been mediocre is they never had ambition befitting their potential market; instead of being Canada’s team they were a corporate bauble, a line item, a telecommunications billboard. Like many teams, the Jays have truly reflected ownership.
Really, the problem with Rogers as an owner has always been that it’s a corporation, and any blood in its veins came from Edward, whose decision-making has never been impressive in sports. You could see in his interview with Ron MacLean Wednesday why Rogers was not put in front of a wider media crowd. And now that is the DNA of Canada’s biggest sports teams.
There is a natural comparison to New York sports magnate James Dolan, the son of a corporate giant who owns all the toys and sometimes breaks them. The Knicks are in a good place right now, but Dolan’s dysfunction with the Knicks endures. MLSE president Keith Pelley, meanwhile, has a much more interesting job. He has to manage one owner, now.
Maybe the Rogers empire, that big fish gorging in Canada’s small pond, will somehow truly commit to winning, hire or retain the right people, and make the right calls in one of the most competitive landscapes in the world. With this, Edward Rogers has a chance to remake his public legacy in this city and this country, beyond being the son of Ted. However it unfolds, it’s Edward’s world, now. Win or lose.