TORONTO — In searching for Paul Beeston’s replacement a decade ago, Edward Rogers, chair of the Toronto Blue Jays and executive chair of Rogers Communications, sought a president and CEO capable of overseeing the club’s baseball and business sides. The scope of the position “is not very usual,” which prompted him to solicit suggestions from around the majors, and Mark Shapiro, “was always a top pick by so many others.”
“He came in early with a vision of what he wanted to do and how we wanted to build the team,” Rogers continued during an interview Friday. “He started by making the Blue Jays a destination players wanted to be at, improve the facilities for a better fan experience, working on bringing us a viable, competitive team each year and trying not to go from feast to famine as much. I think he's done a great job on all of the above. He's a leader that demonstrates through action, he's a very kind and respectful person and he inspires the people that are working with him.”
The relationship they’ve built and Shapiro’s performance during a sometimes tumultuous span, culminating in this year’s run to an American League East title and the franchise’s first World Series appearance since 1993, led to a third five-year contract for the veteran executive.
Announced Friday by Rogers Communications, which also owns Sportsnet, the deal isn’t surprising, as there were murmurs of a possible agreement as far back as the summer. Shapiro’s current contract dates back to January 2021 and was due to expire, and a last-place finish in 2024 had put much around the franchise into question.
But after a middling start this year, the Blue Jays rebounded with what Rogers called “a magical run” that ended with a gutting Game 7 World Series loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The quality of play between the clubs remains a staple of industry buzz.
Rogers said his assessment of Shapiro’s work wasn’t solely based on one season but rather “over a many-years cycle in terms of looking at relationships and strategies and deliverables. Obviously the team was much more formidable in 2025 than it had been in 2024, but we felt we had a better team in 2024 than we delivered. With some improvements and some changes, you saw that in the field in 2025. But I've always wanted to continue working with Mark and I'm so glad that's going to happen.”
The extension of their relationship comes amid a wider into push into the sports industry, with Rogers becoming a majority owner of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment by buying BCE’s 37.5 per cent ownership stake for $4.7 billion. In its most recent annual report, the company noted it was examining multiple options, including “among others, selling a minority interest in some or all of our sports and other media assets to one or more third-party investors, or consolidating these assets in a separate company we take public.”
Rogers, which now owns 75 per cent of MLSE, has an option to purchase the remaining 25 per cent next July, and the company said that any transaction with its sports business “would be implemented in connection with acquiring 100 per ownership of MLSE.”
How the Blue Jays fit into the wider plan is another consideration and when asked if there could be a spin-off effect on Shapiro’s responsibilities, Rogers said “we haven't come to that.”
“Mark's focused on the Jays and if something changes in the future, we'll figure that out,” he continued. “We want great people to lead our businesses and there's a lot of great talent with Mark, within the group he has and within Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment. So Mark will continue to be a leader for us in the next five years, irrespective of what the structure is.”
The Blue Jays have already had an eventful decade under Shapiro’s watch, with four post-season trips as a wild-card team before winning the division this year, and undergoing a rebuild from the 2015-16 playoff clubs to the current core.
Underpinning the baseball side is the way the Blue Jays recast their business, renovating the Rogers Centre and the building the new Player Development Complex in Dunedin, Fla. to both generate more revenue and better support the on-field product.
Commensurate increases in payroll have simultaneously allowed the Blue Jays to compete at the top of the free-agent market, while Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s $500-million, 14-year extension is the second richest in baseball history, once deferrals are factored into Shohei Ohtani’s $700-million, 10-year deal. The Blue Jays were in the bidding for Ohtani and for Juan Soto, who owns the sport’s richest contract at $765 million over 15 years, and their recently completed $210-million, seven-year contract for Dylan Cease is the richest deal of the current off-season thus far.
Scott Boras, the influential attorney who represents both Soto and Cease, noted recently that Rogers came to Los Angeles during Soto’s free-agency process last winter and “was really good in that meeting.” Spending a day together also gave Boras a sense of what Rogers’ “intentions were for the team,” an important demonstration of ownership support.
“We've been competitive over the last couple of years at being a viable option for some of the top free-agent talent and I think that's a testament to Mark's leadership. I'm not sure that would have been the case a decade ago,” Rogers said when asked of how he saw his role in helping the work of Shapiro and the rest of the baseball side. “I'm there to support Mark and to support Ross (Atkins, the GM) and John (Schneider, the manager), anything that I can do. But we're only in the room for players of that calibre because of the leadership of Mark.”
Earning such praise is what allowed Shapiro to routinely push the club’s player payroll to record highs. The Blue Jays became a Competitive Balance Tax paying team for the first time in 2023 and an even bigger bill is due for 2025, when their CBT payroll projects to the $280-million range, fifth-highest in the sport.
Executed well, spending to such levels should help the Blue Jays avoid the type of rebuild they experienced in 2018-19, and Rogers’ plan for Shapiro is “to continue to invest in a team that can be competitive every season.”
That doesn’t mean there won’t be payroll variances, as “you look at where you are competitively and sometimes you think you're close and you're pressing hard, and other times, you're looking to invest in younger and longer-term talent,” said Rogers. “So there are cycles on where the payroll will be. I wouldn’t read into any of that as a lack of enthusiasm or support. That's simply how sports work. We look at the profitability of the Blue Jays. We also look at how that works with the profitability of Sportsnet. How that works in conjunction with the Rogers brand and support for our brand and our customers. So we're going to continue to invest and not be shy.”
And they’ll continue to do so with Shapiro remaining at the helm with an extension that runs through the 2030 season.
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