Blue Jays bottom line hasn't hindered spending to move forward

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They are one of the most visible components of the Rogers Communications empire, albeit an underperforming one over the past handful of MLB seasons.

Not in the standings, mind you, but owing to an incredibly challenging stretch in the baseball world, the hit has come to the bottom line.

Hampered by COVID-19 fallout more than any other team in pro baseball, the Toronto Blue Jays’ revenues have lagged behind the renaissance of the team’s on-field fortunes.

Despite those struggles and undisclosed financial losses, team president Mark Shapiro said the financial support of Rogers has been rock steady.

“We have had a pretty tough four or five years of revenue here and no one’s ever blinked,” Shapiro said in an interview with the Toronto Sun. “There has been a continuation to commit (financially.)

“We could have lost our (competitive) window if we were run as a business. I think our ownership gets accused frequently of running this as a business and we have not been run that way over the last four or five years. We’ve lost quite a bit of money.”

When it comes to payroll and the acquisition of high-end players to complement the Jays core, however, Shapiro says he hasn’t met with resistance from the highest levels of the company.

“The direct questions I get whenever (Rogers chairman) Edward Rogers calls me is ‘How good are we? Are we going to win?’” Shapiro said. “He’s not asking me about profits and losses, he’s asking me about winning and losing and how can we better. He wants to win for this city and this country.”

From not playing here at all in 2020, to only arriving in July 2021 and then having lingering COVID hesitancy plus a season delayed by lockout in 2022, there certainly have been revenue challenges. And that’s in the wake of the struggles of the rebuilding team in 2018 and 2019.

“The goal is always to create as much stability in the season ticket base as you possibly can,” Shapiro said. “I definitely think that as long as the team plays the way we think it’s capable of playing, we’re going to have an exciting year here with a lot of engaged fans.”