The People Behind the Blue Jays: What Toronto’s ownership really wants and what it means for the off-season
If you really want to understand the Toronto Blue Jays (not the roster, not the payroll, not the analytics department, but the actual direction of the franchise) you need to stop staring at the dugout and start looking 15 floors up in a boardroom somewhere on Bloor Street.
Because the real tone setting in Toronto baseball isn’t on the field, it’s not even in the front office, it’s in the ownership structure. The Blue Jays are owned by a single, multimillion-subscriber telecom giant with a family legacy, a history of bold moves, and a decade of internal power shifts that have shaped the team far more than any trade or free-agent signing ever has.
I’m writing this becayse, if you understand those people, the people who sign the checks, approve the vision, and decide whether this team goes all-in or steps back then you can actually predict what the Blue Jays will do next.
This is that story.
The origin story of Rogers Communications: A giant born from one man with a radio transmitter
To understand why Rogers acts the way it does today, you have to go back to its beginnings.
Before Rogers was a telecom empire, owned the Blue Jays, and millions of Canadians paid them every month…
It was one guy with an idea: Ted Rogers.
Ted Rogers, in the 1960s, bought a struggling FM radio station (CHFI) and a fledgling cable company because he saw something nobody else saw: the future of communication was scale, not single products.
He didn’t think like a radio guy, a cable guy, or a telephone guy…he thought like a builder.
The Rogers empire grew exactly the way Ted lived…relentlessly, aggressively, and with a kind of stubborn belief that if the future wasn’t ready, he’d build it himself.
Fast-forward decades:
Cable became wireless.
Wireless became internet.
Internet became media.
Media became sports.
That same “own the system, not just the product” DNA is still in the company today.
Rogers was never built to be a hobbyist. It was built to be a platform, an ecosystem, and a fully vertically integrated machine.
And when a company with that DNA owns a baseball team you get decisions driven by scale, by value, by visibility, by national engagement, not just by wins and losses.
That’s the origin story, the context, and that’s why what’s happening now matters.
A decade of power moves: Rogers ownership Is not the same animal it was in 2015 or before
Let’s go back ten years.
In the mid-2010s, Rogers Communications was still figuring out how to be a sports owner. They owned the Jays, sure, but they weren’t yet a sports empire…at least not in the way the Fenway group is in Boston, or the way Kroenke is in Los Angeles.
Rogers was a telecom company that also happened to have a baseball team, until everything changed.
The Rogers family, specifically Edward S. Rogers III, consolidated power through the Rogers Control Trust (this was a BIG DEAL for a lot of reasons). Over that same decade, Rogers ramped up its influence in Canadian sports, expanding its stake in MLSE alongside Bell, and evolving from “a company that owns the Blue Jays” into “a company that owns a significant chunk of the entire Canadian sports landscape.”
At the same time, the internal leadership changed:
Guy Laurence was out.
Joe Natale came in.
Then Tony Staffieri took over as CEO.
Each shift brought a different appetite for risk, investment, and brand leverage that would lead us to a World Series appearance. But first…
Meanwhile, Mark Shapiro took over baseball operations with a mandate that went beyond baseball: “Think big. Build infrastructure. Build sustainability. Build value.”
Rogers didn’t just want a team, they wanted a baseball platform. One that is a fully integrated sports-media engine where the Blue Jays on field product, the ballpark, and Sportsnet formed one big ecosystem.
Over the past decade, Rogers has changed dramatically.
We’ve seen leadership turnover, telecom consolidation, aggressive sports expansion, the MLSE partnership, stadium reinventions, digital integration, and a growing realization that sports content drives culture.
Rogers didn’t just own the Blue Jays anymore.
They built an entire distribution loop around them:
Sportsnet broadcasts
Jays-branded content
Stadium upgrades
Digital subscription funnels
Regional and national advertising leverage
Brand positioning
Engagement metrics directly tied to wins
This isn’t about a billionaire owner checking his fantasy roster, it’s about a conglomerate seeing the Jays as a flagship content product and that’s why the Jays matter more to ownership now than they did in 2013, 2016, or even 2021.
The team isn’t just a team anymore, it’s a brand pillar, and Rogers is acting like it.
The pattern that nobody talks about is that Rogers doesn’t operate like a baseball owner…they operate like a tech & media power
What most fans don’t understand is that baseball owners are usually either generational wealth hobbyists (think the Ricketts, Ilitch, Monfort types) or real-estate tycoons playing with civic prestige (Angels, Orioles, Marlins).
Rogers is neither.
Rogers behaves like Amazon owns a baseball team, or Apple runs the rotation, or Google is deciding whether to extend Bo Bichette.
That means the decisions they make are less about, “Will this signing win us 85 games or 92?”, and more about, “Does this move grow the brand? The media enterprise? The platform value? The experience ecosystem?”.
They think in scale, in synergy, in market dominance, not just on-base percentage.
That’s why the stadium renovation wasn’t a patch job, it was actually a full reimagining of the building as an experiential product.
This is a huge reason why Sportsnet is tethered so tightly to the Blue Jays performance. This is why they pour money into the team when the narrative is good for business, and slow the pace when it isn’t.
And this is why, after this recent run of success, Rogers is really paying attention.
Because momentum sells, winning sells, engagement sells, and the Jays just moved from “Toronto’s baseball team” to “a coast-to-coast storyline.”
So what does their non-baseball behaviour tell us about their next baseball move?
Let me be blunt. Rogers doesn’t behave impulsively. They behave strategically, even when the strategy doesn’t feel like baseball logic. Listen to how Shapiro and Atkins talk about planning for Bichette’s Free Agency, external targets, player development and you’ll see it’s clear they brought in a strategic President, and an analytical GM because they fit with their approach.
Look at their last ten years outside sports where they consolidated, acquired, modernized, and then spent when growth was possible or tightened when a reset was required.
The thing that should excite Blue Jays fans is that every time a division of Rogers outperformed expectations, leadership doubled down.
Which brings us to the Jays.
Prospects developing.
Rotation stabilizing.
The clubhouse culture changing.
The fanbase re-engaged.
National attention rising.
Prospects of multiple deep postseason run more realistic than in years.
You think a company like Rogers, with this kind of mindset, is going to respond by pinching pennies?
I strongly doubt it…because everything about their patterns suggests the opposite.
When the platform is rising, Rogers invests to accelerate it and, when the ecosystem is working, they protect and reinforce it.
The Jays just handed them momentum a Rogers isn’t blind to the value of that.
What this means for the off-season is an optimistic forecast
The Jays’ ownership has two competing forces inside it:
The corporate instinct for financial responsibility
The platform instinct for aggressive growth
For a long time, No. 1 won out and was the main priority, but no it seems that No.2 is gaining power in the room.
The Jays’ success has created a justification loop:
Winning sells media → media sells sponsorship → sponsorship sells tickets → tickets justify spending → spending drives winning…and repeat.
Rogers executives don’t talk in WAR (wins above replacement) they talk in revenue streams, subscriber engagement, brand leverage, and asset value curves. And it just so happens that this current Jays run is checking every box.
There’s pressure, but not the desperate kind, more of the opportunistic kind: “You have something here. Don’t waste it. Grow it.”
That’s why you should expect:
More spending, not less.
More aggression, not caution.
More extensions, not departures.
More infrastructure, not band-aids.
More top-tier scouting and international plays, not reclamation coupons.
Because the people who control the Blue Jays do not behave like baseball owners, instead, they behave like people who see a platform rising and want to capitalize while the window is open.
Pulling back the curtain this offseason
Is that good?
Mostly, yes.
Because it means this team finally has ownership that cares in a way that affects outcomes.
Is it risky?
Absolutely.
Because corporate priorities shift faster than baseball cores.
But here’s the truth — and it’s a good one:
The Jays’ ownership is at a point where the cost of doing nothing is now higher than the cost of investing heavily.
So if you think Rogers is looking at the Jays right now and thinking, “Let’s dial it back,” then you haven’t been paying attention.
Recent success doesn’t make them cautious, it makes them bold.
This winter, expect three things:
1. Aggressive roster moves…but targeted, not reckless
Ownership is not going to greenlight a splash for the attention alone.
But if a move strengthens the platform (the star power, consistency, narrative momentum) they’ll support it.
The reality is that all of the below options are more likely to happen at the same time now than ever before.
high-impact international signings like Kazuma Okamoto
serious impact bat like Kyle Tucker and/or pitcher like Framber Valdez
bold extensions if they align with long-term brand value like Bo Bichette
2. Investment in infrastructure and experience
Rogers thinks in long arcs so they’ll push stadium upgrades, digital enhancements, brand initiatives, and national fan engagement campaigns.
They’re not building a baseball team anymore, they’re truly building a national product that we will see much more of in Calgary, Vancouver, Halifax, and Saskatoon than ever before.
3. No appetite for a step back
The Jays may retool, but they will not rebuild because ownership won’t allow this team to vanish off the national stage.
They want October baseball, national relevance, and to fully leverage the championship momentum.
The Jays are close enough that it would be a branding mistake, and a strategic mistake, to take their foot off the gas.
The Jays are entering their most ambitious ownership era yet
For once, the incentives for the business and the incentives for the baseball team are perfectly aligned.
Winning is good business.
Star power is good business.
Keeping the core together is good business.
Extending the window is good business.
For the first time in a decade, the Jays’ corporate parents don’t just want to maintain stability, they want to build momentum.
And the reality is that when the people with the chequebooks want momentum, baseball teams get better.
This off-season, the Jays are not operating from fear, but from opportunity, and that’s when big things happen.
