All you had to hear yesterday was the comment from Rogers that their objective is to bring costs more in line with the revenue that the Jays bring in. That statement says that Jays will not be increasing their budget and in fact are looking to decrease their budget to bring it more in line with revenues.
Rogers appears to be taking the view that the Jays are just another business division and want to improve the look of the financial statements. This approach sheds an additional bit of light on the buyout of BJ Ryan. Granted Ryan had lost the ability to be a closer and was no longer of value to the club, but it did seem strange that they would just pre-pay the balance of his contract and allow him to sign with another team instead of trying to rehab him themselves.
However, when you look at it from the perspective of corporate financial statements it begins to make sense. On the financial statements the buyout of BJ Ryan is treated as a one time expense and your salary figures magically decrease. When an investor or potential buyer looks at the financial statements they discount one time expenses and are more concerned about how ongoing expenses such as salary compare to projected revenues. This really is no different then a company laying-off a division which is treated as a one time expense and therefore improves the look of projected expenses.
In the grander scheme of things this speaks volumes of how Rogers plans to run the Jays in the future. We can expect the salary budget to decrease and the team to move to a small market model.
As this approach becomes more obvious you hear the fans scream that Rogers is being greedy. They point out that Toronto is the number four market in US/Canada and the budget should be set accordingly. What the fans are choosing to ignore is that Toronto is not really a baseball city. While the Jays are in the fourth largest market, they only have the 23rd best attendance in baseball. In attendance, the Jays are four spots behind Arizona and are just ahead of Kansas City and Tampa.
The reason I’m comparing the Jays attendance to those teams is that they are markets that we as Canadians consider not being able to support a hockey team. Those areas almost define the term “small market”. In the world of baseball, Toronto is really in that group of cities. The reality is that the Jays are not supported by the fans in a way that would let them compete budget wise with the Yankees and the Red Sox.
Some argue that if you spend the money and improve the product the fans will come out. Well the Jays had a tremendous start to this season but that was not reflected in team attendance. If it were your money would you take that chance? The owner, Rogers, is a publicly traded company and as such they have to answer to their investors. It is looking quite clear that they are not prepared to take that chance.
Right now Rogers appears focused on sprucing up the balance sheet. The fans will not like this, but the investment analysts will and that is who Rogers is choosing to please when it comes to managing the Jays.
For Jays fans, the best hope for success on the field might well be new ownership. If we want to dream, the ultimate hope may for a new ownership group led by Paul Beeston.
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New ownership is the only way to prevent the inevitable extinction of this team in Toronto. I think the Blue Jays were an artistic/entertainment intrique in a city that is too diverse in its entertainment interest to claim a sufficient core of baseball fanatics. That may not have been the case in the early years, when even the Expos were thriving, but its obvious that in the early part of the season when the Jays were leading that people were not interested in coming the the park in droves from game two on. Many factors are involved I'm sure, the economy etc. The current ownerships budgetary forecast would almost certainly doom this franchise out of existence.
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