Amid all the deadline hysteria and the excitement of following a team that briefly reached first place this past week, people can be forgiven if they’ve forgotten the somber mood that was so prevalent among the Blue Jays fanbase this past offseason. Coming off a year that saw the GM make two huge splashes at the deadline and the team go all the way to the ALCS, people couldn’t have been happier.
Then, in a flash, the happy moments disappeared. Alex Anthopoulos left town (eventually landing in LA) and the Blue Jays let David Price walk in favour of J.A. Happ. By the time spring training rolled around full of Bautista and Encarnacion contract talk, fans were ready to run Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins out of town. However, by far the biggest thing that had fans upset was the prospect of opening the season with a payroll at the same levels as 2014 and 2015, despite massive surges in season tickets and flex packs, and an increase in ticket prices.
With the success of Happ and the recent tweaks to the roster through trade, much of Shapiro and Atkins’ reputations has been restored, but it is the payroll situation that provides the most intrigue.
As of this writing, the Blue Jays are averaging 40,395 in attendance across 56 home games. For some context, that’s an improvement of nearly six thousand fans over last year’s average (34,504). The Blue Jays lead the American League in attendance for the first time since the early 90’s, and the crowds are only going to get bigger as the season reaches the heights of the AL East race. When combined with a ten percent hike in ticket prices (on average), the new dynamic pricing system that raises the cost of in-demand games (read: all of them), and the increased concession/memorabilia purchases from the extra fans, the team is pulling in a LOT of new money.
The boosts to the revenue streams aren’t limited to those attending games at the Rogers Centre, either. As of July 6, the Blue Jays were averaging 928K viewers per game on their broadcasts, which is a whopping fifty percent increase over last year at this time. They had also seen 30 broadcasts top one million viewers, up from just two at that time last year. Those are numbers that beat Fox Sports 1’s high for the season (687,000), TBS, and top non-Sunday Night Baseball games on ESPN. As a reminder, the USA is 10x more populated than Canada. People in this country love watching the Blue Jays.
Now, as many are aware, Rogers Communications owns the Blue Jays and they also own Sportsnet, the Blue Jays exclusive television broadcaster. As a result, there is no long term rights deal between the broadcaster and the team, as exists with almost every other club in MLB. Such a situation is almost entirely beneficial to ownership, as they are never at risk of losing big if the product doesn’t draw as expected (as we saw with the Rogers NHL rights purchase). However, it does allow a unique circumstance where increased ratings mean Shapiro could go to the company and ask for some extra budget space due to unforeseen revenues.
It’s impossible to know which of these factors has led to where we are now, but all of a sudden, the Blue Jays are throwing their financial weight around for the first time in a generation. In recent deals, the Blue Jays have decided to take on money as opposed to giving up assets. They absorbed Francisco Liriano’s entire $4.5M this year and $13.667 M next year and it got them two prospects back. They also picked up Scott Feldman’s entire salary ($2.6M left), Jesse Chavez’ remaining money (Approx $1.7M) and $5M of Melvin Upton Jr.’s contract. By paying in money, the Blue Jays have only been forced to deal lottery pick prospects, while getting likely big leaguers, if non-stars in return (McGuire, Ramirez, and Bolsinger). This is a far cry from even a few years ago when rumours existed that Noah Syndergaard was included at part of the R.A. Dickey package to avoid paying Dickey’s $5M salary (removed by sending John Buck to the Mets).
At the end of all those deals, the Blue Jays payroll actually now sits somewhere in the $150M neighbourhood for the year, which is more than $10M above last year’s final total. With the diminished Canadian Dollar, that is a huge outlay for Rogers, and a reward for the financial success of the club.
None of this will erase the years that Rogers has seemingly underfunded this team, of course. Fans don’t forgive that easily. And it’s also still too early to tell what this means for Encarnacion, Bautista, Saunders, and all the other free agents on this club. However, the team is finally starting to spend money to win, instead of spending players, and that’s nothing but a good thing.
Lead Photo: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
Re: broadcasting.
One thing that particularly drives me crazy about Rogers and the Sportsnet broadcasting (apart from Buck & Pat; asinine bar graphs) is that the quality of the replays under review are ridiculously terrible. Rogers advertises 4k broadcasting (I believe that is 60fps? I could be wrong) and are inferior to many of the American broadcasts that boast slow motion replays are extraordinarily smooth and clear. Why is it that a cable broadcasting corporation with all of the financial flex for that trade in particular, rely on relatively few high quality slow motion angles? It truly should be embarrassing for them. I back this up based on all of the opponents broadcasts that I often watch (MLB.TV). A fine recent example is Houston’s video broadcasting. The replays under review were gorgeous. Oh, and it seemed to only take a fraction of the time to rule the play under review. Interesting coincidence.
I wonder how much of that is Sportsnet vs the available camera locations in the Dome. I would assume it’s more the latter.
Perhaps, but shouldn’t they (Rogers) have far more free range to modify/adjust to their surrounds than a contracted broadcaster? After all, Rogers owns the SkyDome. I suppose we’ll never know. I do know, camera angles aside, that some/many of those slowed down replays have an inferior frame rate. The ball moving blurred inches across the screen per m/s vs. a nice crystal clear oozing slowness. It would be nice to upgrade the tech. Anyway, it’s definitely out of this plebeians control.
Agreed that the payroll is $10 MM USD higher than last year, however, the CDN exchange rate is the same rate today as it was a year ago.
Additionally, the Jays attendance for this year is greater by 594,000 seats filled compared to last year. Your comparison of the present annual attendance to 2015 average attendance is not applicable.
Should the average seat price be higher by 10% (presently 2.2 Million seats this year- that would add approx. $5 MM USD to Revenue) plus the additional 594,000 attendees based on last year USD ticket prices averaging $22.50 or 13.2 MM USD more in revenue.
Presently the Jays spent $10 MM more than last year providing depth and replacing Dickey for next year and have achieved $18.2 MM more in direct Revenue.
This excludes ancillary revenue such as food and beverage increases as well as merchandise sales increase.
On an annualized basis Jays revenue including F & B , merchandise sales, and ticket sales for 2016, should provide a revenue increase by $30 MM USD for this year. Net Benefit for the team is $20 MM for the next year budget which could move to $160 to 170 MM.
The Jays could sign 2 of 3 Free Agents EE, JB and Saunders for $45-50 MM. and with $5 MM for the bullpen still be within budget of $160 MM.
The team would be 5 deep in Starting and Relief pitching, with Grilli, Osuna and Biagini, Bolsinger, Loup returning.
Goins or Barney could be trade bait.
Finally with greater viewership so far by 50% and the increase of advertising revenue being 40% higher. The Jays also made money from the sale of the minority share of MLBLAM to Disney, the share is valued at $40 MM.
No tag days for the Jays.
Additionally, the Jays prospects in the farm system is much deeper, including next year’s first round pick and probably at least 1 supplementary pick, the farm system should move into the top ten by end of 2017.
You seem to be trying to equate my piece to the revenue earned to date, but the team would be basing the money they can add this year off projected end of season earnings, using current information. As such, last year’s final attendance number is arguably more relevant than attendance to date, hence the mention about likely increase as the season gets into the heat of the playoff race.
As for the exchange rate, you’re looking at dollars now vs dollars a year ago, but to this point in the season, the Canadian dollar has averaged $0.774 USD, whereas last year the average was $0.789 over the season. That may not seem like much, but on a $140M payroll, that’s a difference of over $4.3M. At a current rate of $0.764, there’s no reason to expect that gap to get smaller over the year. I also recall reading that Rogers didn’t hedge this year, but can’t find that so I didn’t quote it.
The rest of your comment is spot on though.
Joshua,
Please note the Jays receive from MLB, for a multitude of Revenue Streams in USD almost $100 MM USD annually, excluding the minority share sold of MLBLAM.
These streams include National Tv and Radio Contract, Revenue Pool Sharing of Regional Tv Revenue, I believe it is 34% of the Regional Tv Revenue. Rogers cooks their books so that their contribution is always the average Share annually.
For Royalties and Fees for MLB merchandise not sold each teams stores or eCommerce affiliated to that store. The monies from MLBLAM and another Trust that Selig setup after the sales of the Expos.
This revenue stream has increased each year, and will continue to do so , because Regional TV, Royalties and Fees for merchandise, MLBLAM and the other Trust continues to grow.
So the amount of monies to cover the USD Salaries of Players and Managers , Milb Players and Managers and the two Draft expenditures as well as medical and insurance benefits which is supplement from 50% of Luxury tax penalties that is shared by the 27 or 28 teams that done exceed the Luxury Cap.
These numbers reduce from the USD expense of $160 MM total to $60 Mm per annum
Therefore the Xchange rate effect is less than $1.5 MM which is inconsequential. These guys are making monies hand over fist. The Rogers Accountants are hard at work attributing management fees to cover it.
That’s great. The team is still paying $206.7M vs $202.8M in salary at $160M, which is an increased cost on the Rogers Media ledger that they didn’t have to approve, regardless of revenue. Additionally, all of that revenue was accounted for before the season. But none of that is the point of the sentence in the article, and which I should have made clearer in my first reply. All I said was a diminished CDN dollar, with no specific time reference, though you chose to assign one.
The point is that the team just traded for an additional $10M USD from here until the end of the year. At current exchange rates, that’s $13M CDN. That’s a big outlay. They weren’t required to approve it, but they did, which is a good thing.
It’s not a big thing, but I don’t know about counting on Loup or Bolsinger as sure to be back. Loup will be arb-eligible for the second time. While he doesn’t rate to get much of a raise if any from this year’s $1.05mm, it’s unusual for players to take cuts. So depending on how confident management is that he’ll be on the 25-man roster next year, there might be some chance he’ll be non-tendered. And if this is his last option year, he’ll have to be exposed to waivers if he doesn’t make the 25-man.
I think this is Bolsinger’s last option year too, so while he’s not arb-eligible until 2018 at the earliest, he’d also have to pass through waivers unless he makes the team.
I think Bolsinger would probably have an inside track at a long reliever spot. He does have some MLB success under his belt.
Certainly possible. I’m not counting either out, just not considering them to be locks.
Shatkins
Has done a good job of increasing the depth of the MLB team, supplementing players to the value players such as JD,Tulo, Martin, JB and EE.
My belief is that the Jays will sign EE or JB and offer a 3/35 MM deal to Saunders, unless he continues to tank, than he will be 3/30 and you can let JB get you a supplementary pick.
Next year by mid year , if his talent continues to shine SRF maybe up with the Jays.
Alford and Tellez are ready for 2018 based on their evolution.