The Toronto Blue Jays celebrate winning the American League East division after beating the New York Yankees on Wednesday.Al Bello/Getty Images
Ever since the Toronto Blue Jays clinched the American League East division two weeks ago, Sportsnet has been treating viewers to a raucous promotional spot for the team’s playoff run set to Queen’s 1989 hit I Want It All. Fans might be forgiven for wondering if that’s the current motto of Rogers Communications Inc. RCI-B-T, which owns both Sportsnet and the Jays, as the company reaps a bountiful harvest from its vertical integration strategy.
Rogers seems to be everywhere the Jays are, and then some. It is the presenting sponsor of Sportsnet’s Major League Baseball postseason coverage, has its logo on the top-right corner of the screen and behind home plate, where it declares itself “Proud Owner of Canada’s Team,” and runs ads dozens of times through the TV broadcasts touting its Xfinity TV service and its team ownership.
In the short term, Rogers will likely earn tens of millions of dollars from the playoff run – in sales of tickets and merchandise, in-stadium food and beverage, as well as ads on Sportsnet that garner massive audiences and subscriptions for the company’s Sportsnet+ streaming service. But the biggest benefit may be in the medium to longer term, adding a heartwarming element to the Rogers brand and bringing in more possible customers through a series of innovative promotions.
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The playoff run by the Jays, who Rogers says polling has shown are considered to be Canada’s team by 80 per cent of Canadians, offers a national platform for the company to buff its image in front of millions of current and potential customers. And it is uniquely positioned to do so, as the only North American conglomerate with a national telecom and TV footprint married to a sports division, which this year grew to include a 75-per-cent share of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment.
(Late on Friday, MLSE announced that it was moving the time of the Toronto Maple Leafs’ game against the Detroit Red Wings on Monday to 2 p.m., to avoid conflicting with the Jays’ game later that afternoon, adding that fans can stick around after the hockey game to watch the Jays on the jumbotron at Scotiabank Arena.)
“It’s a home run,” said Norm O’Reilly, dean of the Graduate School of Business and professor of sport management and marketing at the University of Maine. “It’s a dream situation for Rogers because of the integration.”
The company is using ticket giveaways and other stunts to drive engagement with fans and bask in the reflected glory of the team’s success.
Fans give Blue Jays pitcher Trey Yesavage (39) a standing ovation during Sunday’s game against the New York Yankees in Toronto.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
“It allows us to connect with consumers on a more emotional level,” said Terrie Tweddle, chief brand and communications officer for Rogers Communications, in an interview. “I get e-mails from fans, from customers, telling me the most heartfelt stories, personal stories about what this means for them.”
“We know from our research that our ownership position in the team has a positive impact in terms of perceptions of the brand, perceptions on purchase intent.”
Cheri Bradish, director of the Future of Sport Lab and Sport Initiatives at Toronto Metropolitan University, said Rogers will see “in the millions of dollars in terms of incremental value,” an amount which will grow each game as the Jays close in on the World Series.
On Saturday morning, the company will announce a promotion it has dubbed Dial the Dugout, in which fans can telephone a number and record a message for the team in either English or French. (Those calling the English-language line will hear a clean greeting from the Jays salty-tongued coach John Schneider.) They can also show their support on social media with a #DialTheDugout hashtag. By doing so, they register for the chance to win tickets (and also give their phone number to Rogers for marketing purposes). Toronto mayor Olivia Chow was scheduled to participate in a stunt Saturday morning at the city’s Union Station, calling the dugout from a temporary Rogers pop-up location.
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It is difficult to quantify how much a postseason run might be worth to the Jays themselves, because its revenues and expenses are reported as part of Rogers’s media division.
But in a 10-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for the 2024 fiscal year, Atlanta Braves Holdings – the only publicly traded company that owns a Major League Baseball franchise – disclosed how much net revenue its appearances in the three previous postseasons had added to the bottom line.
The Braves’ four playoff games in 2022 netted the company about US$8.4-million; four games in 2023 netted US$11.3-million; and two games in 2024 netted about US$2-million. (Playoff teams keep only about 40 per cent of the ticket sales, with the rest going into a pool shared by players.)
The Braves weren’t able to earn much extra revenue from higher television ratings, since playoff games in the U.S. are carried by a national broadcaster such as Fox Sports.
As the owner of the national Canadian broadcast rights, Rogers can charge significant premiums for ad time on Sportsnet as viewership approaches audiences similar to what it pulls in for NHL playoff matches featuring Canadian teams.
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The long run by the Edmonton Oilers last spring – and the sadder, shorter runs by the Winnipeg Jets and the Toronto Maple Leafs – helped bring high TV ratings and a financial bump to the company. The two-month stretch of playoffs pulled in an average audience of 1.8 million viewers, according to Sportsnet, citing data by the ratings agency Numeris. The six games of the final drew an average of 3.8 million.
In July, the company reported media revenue for its second quarter, which ended June 30, was up 10 per cent, or $72-million, year-over-year, in part from what it said was “higher sports-related revenue due to the success of the NHL season and higher Toronto Blue Jays revenue.” But it also noted that operating costs in the media division climbed 9 per cent in the same period, or $67-million, due in part to what it called “higher Toronto Blue Jays expenses, including player payroll and game day-related costs.”
Viewership for the Jays is already close to the Oilers’ final series, with Sportsnet reporting on Thursday that the four-game American League Division Series had drawn an average audience of 3.7 million.
Any bump from the Jays’ postseason performance would go toward improving what is currently a narrow margin on sports. In 2024, the Rogers sports and media division earned a total revenue of $2.48-billion and had $2.4-billion in expenses, resulting in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $84-million. This represents a 3.4-per-cent profit margin, up from 3.3 per cent in 2023.