Rogers' big bets on sports made Guerrero deal a must

The Toronto Blue Jays have never been cheap under the ownership of Rogers Communications.

One doesn't have to look further than the Blue Jays' own division to find teams that have been leaders, so to speak, of Major League Baseball's extreme frugality.

But it's also fair to say that Toronto's front office has been pragmatic, cautious, and prudent.

It was evident when former general manager Alex Anthopoulos hoarded his available budget space in 2015 to avoid seeking ownership approval for his late-season trades for David Price and Troy Tulowitzki. It was plain to see when Mark Shapiro arrived to take over baseball operations and immediately said the previous regime's plan for a costly grass field at the Rogers Centre was "not a priority." It continued as that 2015-16 playoff roster, the one that had relit Toronto's baseball fuse, was slowly dismantled in favour of a rebuild.

Even when the team started spending in a big way again, there were rational explanations. It overpaid to lure George Springer to town in 2021 because the young core was still under team control. The team added veteran arms - but on short-term deals. A moonshot like the monster contract offered to Shohei Ohtani came with a caveat - Shapiro and general manager Ross Atkins had convinced those in the Rogers executive suites that there was a unique business case in adding a player of his talent and marketability. He wouldn't have blown up their salary structure but would have been placed adjacent to it. Budgets still mattered.

The $500-million contract for Vladimir Guerrero Jr. puts an end to all that. It's a risk, full stop. It's not just that power hitters with limited defensive skills tend to decline sharply in value once they hit their mid-30s; it's that Guerrero hasn't been consistent. Shapiro said as much in a recent interview - before the deal was signed - noting that the Jays had to consider the player had a couple of outstanding years at the plate, and a couple that were less than outstanding. If Guerrero produces more like 2023 than 2024 over the next several seasons, the contract will be a disaster.

Which is why this feels like a sea change. For the first time in memory, the Jays are spending in a way that's more in line with impulsive billionaire owners than corporate boardrooms with an eye on the bottom line.

And that aligns with the parent company's overall direction. Rogers has made a series of huge bets on sports. It spent $11 billion to lock up Canadian NHL broadcast rights for another 12 years and is in the process of spending another $5 billion to buy out Bell's ownership stake in MLSE, which controls the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors among its many assets. It's all-in on sports, which is literally the phrase an executive used when announcing the NHL deal. (Executives usually don't talk like that).

This is also something of a departure from recent history, when it was often said that it was Rogers' side of MLSE that needed convincing for any significant spending, from the contract to bring in former Leafs coach Mike Babcock to the lucrative extension handed to Raptors president Masai Ujiri.

But with Rogers seeing live sports, both in-person and on broadcast platforms, as a key element of its long-term strategy - a content pillar as consumers are cutting cords and finding new ways to view content - the Guerrero contract takes on a different kind of importance. If a company is all-in on sports and spending billions to solidify that position, does it make any sense to let a franchise pillar leave over a few tens of millions?

It does not. The Jays are a jewel of the Rogers empire, and after the company spent a Vlad-like amount on renovating the creaky domed stadium and upgrading its Florida spring training facilities, it would have been ludicrous to let a homegrown star walk in free agency because his market value had grown too high. What kind of signal would it have sent to the Toronto sports fan if the company rapidly becoming Toronto Sports Incorporated haggled one of its key faces right out of town? It certainly would have made "all-in on sports" ring hollow.

We will soon see if this is the start of a trend. Will Bo Bichette find that there is more money available for another homegrown star than there might have been at this time last year? Will there be an eagerness to match whatever Leafs winger Mitch Marner might get on the open market? Will the dreaded NBA luxury-tax aprons be less of a fear once the Raptors find themselves in a position to possibly breach them?

The thing about being a pro sports owner is that there is almost always another team out there willing to force you out of your comfort zone. The big question is whether Rogers is now one of those teams.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.