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Rogers Communications Inc. is considering selling assets such as baseball's Toronto Blue Jays and a stake in media company Cogeco Inc. to free up capital for other investments, Chief Financial Officer Tony Staffieri said.

The Toronto-based telecommunications giant wants to get more value for the assets, though no deal is imminent, Staffieri said at the UBS Global Media and Communications conference in New York.

Rogers plans to increase investments in its wireless network as part of a plan to capture a surge in data use, Chief Executive Officer Joe Natale told the Globe and Mail this week. Rogers shares have soared 26 per cent this year, outpacing rivals Telus Corp. and BCE Inc. by more than double, as wireless revenue soared and customer retention improved.

The company has said before that it's exploring ways to get more value from its portfolio of assets, including the Jays, but Staffieri's comments Tuesday were more specific. Rogers still wants rights to sports programming but doesn't have to own a team to have that, he said, pointing to the company's 12-year deal with the National Hockey League.

Rogers' media business made up about 15 per cent of sales last year but only about 3 per cent of operating profit, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The company has been a longtime investor in Cogeco and now holds about a third of the media company and a fifth of its cable unit, Cogeco Communications Inc.

"There were some strategic benefits that we had hoped for with Cogeco and those seem to be further and further away," Staffieri said. "As we think about an environment where interest rates start to go up and compare it to the yield that we're getting on the asset today, we think there's probably better use for that capital."

C_Money wrote:What if MLSE bought them?

Schad wrote:While I'd welcome a new owner, there just aren't that many parties in Canada that have the $1.2-$1.5b to drop on a baseball team. Most likely proposition would be trading one corporate owner for another.

Maybe the OTPP wants to complete the Toronto sports hat trick?

Rogers acquired the franchise from Belgian-based brewing company, Interbrew, in 2000 for $160 million.

The Blue Jays are valued at $1.3 billion, according to Forbes' 2017 list of baseball organizations. The price tag makes Toronto the 16th most valuable major league franchise. In contrast of the Marlins immense sale, Forbes values Miami at $940 million.

A potential sale of the Blue Jays doesn't mean that Rogers is leaving the world of sports. In fact, they have to wait nearly a decade for its 12-year, $52 billion contract with the National Hockey League to end, which Wong says Staffieri refers to about Rogers' stance in sports media. Rogers owns 37.5 percent of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Raptors, Maple Leafs, Toronto FC, the Toronto Marlies, Toronto FC II and Raptors 905.

Schad wrote:While I'd welcome a new owner, there just aren't that many parties in Canada that have the $1.2-$1.5b to drop on a baseball team. Most likely proposition would be trading one corporate owner for another.

Maybe the OTPP wants to complete the Toronto sports hat trick?

So_Fresh wrote:We need a new stadium and a new rich (billionaire) owner. The Rogers center has passed it's time imo.

Maddogfromto wrote:

Schad wrote:While I'd welcome a new owner, there just aren't that many parties in Canada that have the $1.2-$1.5b to drop on a baseball team. Most likely proposition would be trading one corporate owner for another.

Maybe the OTPP wants to complete the Toronto sports hat trick?

does Galen Weston like baseball? it will be difficult as I don't think a sports team is a great economic investment, more of an ego thing

Centre Court wrote:Part of the rationale for bringing in Shapiro and eliminating a lot of the old Blue Jays management group was so that the Blue Jays would be a better fit culturally/business-wise within the Rogers corporate structure. And now they want to sell it?

Unless Rogers feels the new business team makes the Blue Jays more attractive to a prospective buyer, I'm not sure why they didn't stick with the status quo.

TORONTO – The bombshell public pronouncement by chief financial officer Tony Staffieri that Rogers Communications Inc. is considering a sale of the Toronto Blue Jays among other assets will have no impact on the club’s pursuit of players this winter, insists Ross Atkins.

Speaking Wednesday afternoon during the Toronto chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s annual awards luncheon, the club’s general manager said he and his staff continue to operate on the plans they’ve already laid out with the winter meetings set to open Monday in Orlando.

“We have so much freedom and flexibility the way that we do operate and the way we’ve articulated our strategy, our resources, our goals to agents, other teams, nothing has changed on that front,” said Atkins.

A sale of the Blue Jays would be no simple task, as the pool of potential buyers for the club would be relatively limited. If a transfer were to occur, Major League Baseball would likely prefer the team go to an individual, as opposed to another corporation, with Edward Rogers, currently the club’s chairman and son of the telecommunication giant’s founder Ted Rogers, making the most sense.

When reached for comment, Rogers director of media relations Sarah Schmidt provided the following statement:

“We have terrific sports assets including the Toronto Blue Jays that have performed really well for us. As we have said, we would like to surface value and get credit for these assets in our overall company valuation.”