A Blue Jays fan cheers on the team during Opening Day at the Rogers Centre this season.Dave Sandford
Rogers Communications Inc., says it's committed to the Toronto Blue Jays and that the baseball club's costs can be controlled, as trade speculation hovers over Roy Halladay and his teammates.
Speaking during a conference call to discuss the company's quarterly earnings Tuesday, CEO Nadir Mohamed was asked by an analyst about the team's place within the company given its continued financial losses and payroll disparity with its rivals.
"We remain obviously committed to the Blue Jays," Mohamed said.
The Blue Jays are spending around $81-million (all currency U.S.) on players this season, well back of their AL East rivals.
The New York Yankees payroll is just over $200-million, while the Boston Red Sox are at $123-million.
Tony Viner, president of Rogers Media, the division responsible for the Blue Jays, said the team's spending is being brought in line with its revenues and that it remains an important part of the company's overall business.
"We believe that the financial performance of the Blue Jays can improve," he said during the call. "In fact it's the one division of the media company this year, year over year performance is better than it was.
"We think that we can bring costs reasonably under control and more in line with revenues and our revenues are actually increasing in certain parts of the business, so as you know the Jays form an important part of our programming schedule on Rogers Sportsnet which is another division of the company which has done recently well and especially during the recession."