There’s no reason to expect Rogers to shortchange the Toronto Blue Jays after the company’s $5.2 billion deal with the National Hockey League.
So says Rogers Media president Keith Pelley, who told the Jeff Blair Show on Sportsnet 590 The Fan Wednesday morning the Blue Jays’ payroll will not be affected by the company’s new NHL deal.
“Under no circumstance would we say that we spent all this money in hockey that we’re no longer going to invest in the Toronto Blue Jays,” Pelley told Blair. “We’re committed to the Blue Jays. (We) continue to be committed. And our goal is simple; we want to win the World Series.
“It does not affect the Blue Jays payroll in any way whatsoever.”
Pelley added Rogers remains as dedicated as ever to the Blue Jays and added that the company has no plans to waver from its commitment to the franchise.
“We own the Blue Jays — 100 percent of them,” Pelley said. “We are everything Blue Jays. We made that commitment last year from a production and a programming perspective. Certainly that was some of the reason why there was renewed interest in the team.”
Rogers has a multitude of sports channels to broadcast both the NHL and the Blue Jays, but if a conflict ever arose, Pelley said they could choose to show baseball games on CBC or City.
“We made the decision that we would show all 162 Blue Jays games as Sportsnet and Sportsnet ONE continue to grow,” he explained. “Sportsnet 360 is now in seven million homes, an option that we didn’t have before. You also have CBC. If in fact we have a conflict, they are our preferred partner in all sports. So we would even like the Blue Jays on City or CBC.”
“It’s exactly in our DNA to give the Canadian fans as much coverage as they possibly can of both hockey and the Blue Jays.”
