How Edward Rogers helped make Vlad Guerrero Jr.’s extension with Blue Jays a reality

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He is one of the more private billionaire sports owners in North America, rarely seen in attendance when teams in the vast empire his company oversees are competing and even more elusive in terms of public commentary on those ventures.

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But you better believe Rogers Communications chairman Edward Rogers was actively involved in the push to get Blue Jays star Vlad Guerrero Jr. in agreement to his historic 14-year, $500-million US extension.

“(Ownership) is very involved, integrally involved in all those efforts,” Blue Jays president Mark Shapiro said in a recent interview. “There wasn’t an offer made, there wasn’t a strategy where they’re not informed.

“Edward certainly is personally involved in some of those as well, especially when it comes to the large-scale efforts like Vladdy or (Shohei) Ohtani. Those are beyond large scale.”

Edward Rogers doesn’t act alone, of course. He has a board to answer to and trusts his CEO Tony Staffieri on the business implications of any large transaction.

Clearly he also trusts Shapiro as well, given he has signed off on more than $710-million CAD to Guerrero, locking up one of the country’s most popular athletes for the duration of his career. And it’s also possible the man who oversees the Rogers telecommunications empire made his voice heard in the final negotiations.

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In Shapiro’s opinion, that involvement of Edward Rogers speaks to the dramatic company shift to not just invest in Canadian sports, but to dominate the prime properties while marrying them to the expansive broadcast outlets to amplify the products.

The Guerrero extension is just the latest big spend, all of them investments that would have required the man whose name is on the company to sign off on them.

The $11-billion extension for NHL rights last week was another example.

And then there was the boss move late last year to buy out rival Bell of its 37.5% stake in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment that will double Rogers’ stake and give it a stranglehold on the country’s biggest and most lucrative sports entity.

In recent years, the Rogers board also has signed off on more than $500 million in spending on renovations to the Rogers Centre (which draws rave reviews from fans) and the team’s player development complex in Florida (which Jays players rave about).

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“From the time that I agreed to come here, (Edward Rogers) was always bullish on sports,” Shapiro said in our interview. “He said to me, ‘I know sports are going to be important in the landscape of what my family business if for generations.’ Obviously now it’s an enhanced level of interest, involvement and desire to be a great sports owner.”

Perhaps the best news for fans across the board in Toronto’s big franchises — the Leafs, Raptors and Blue Jays — is that with that aggressiveness, Shapiro believes, is a drive to own and oversee winners.

It’s not all benevolence, of course. The company, under Edward’s stewardship, clearly believes that revenues associated with a deep playoff drive — from the Blue Jays or Maple Leafs especially — will follow any such successes.

“There’s not a conversation I have with him where his questions are not focused on our chances to win and what has to happen,” Shapiro said. “He talks about rings far more than anyone else. He’s focused on winning and I think maybe that’s because of his growing stake in the Toronto sports landscape.

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“He wants to be a great owner and he deems being a great owner is one that brings championships and winning to the fans.”

Shapiro cautioned that he isn’t operating with a blank cheque and that Rogers isn’t signing off on wild buying sprees that have no hope of bringing in revenue.

With the NHL deal, for example, there is a business plan to extend the company’s dominance of the marketplace, much of it through its broadcast avenues. It’s a blueprint that has worked extraordinarily well for the Jays, which has almost all of its 162 games beamed on Rogers-owned platforms.

There will be a plan to help monetize the Guerrero extension as well, even with the inherent reality that the back end of the 14-year pact doesn’t figure to age well.

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“It’s a business, like every Major League Baseball team and there’s always a limit,” Shapiro said. “There are always some underlying business realities.

“That level of support is not everywhere. It doesn’t exist with every team. That is certainly the clear choice of both Edward and Tony Staffieri and leaders within the Rogers board and office.”

Shapiro points to the decimation of the 2020 and 2021 COVID seasons, when there was almost no revenue coming in via attendance and uncertainty in the future. Rather than pull back, Rogers charged forward.

“We had almost (no) revenue and we never skipped a beat,” Shapiro said. “The support never wavered.”

It’s clear that Edward Rogers would have helped with the final push to consummate the deal in the wee hours of Monday morning.

“I think fans can rest assured that there’s an ownership here that may not be conventional compared to other teams, where there’s one person working in the front office, but is one that’s engaged, cares deeply and wants to win,” Shapiro said.

And then, with a chuckle: “I’ve said this a couple of times internally, there’s only two people that I know are going to be here at the end of a contract that we sign with Vladdy and that’s Edward (Rogers) and Vladdy. So he better be involved.”

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