Blue Jays help Rogers' profits climb 40%

[Rhettmatic]

http://www.thestar.com/business/2015/10/22/rogers-profits-climbs-40.html

While a comparatively minor segment of the overall business, Rogers Media saw adjusted operating profits more than double thanks to the Jays and contributions from Sportsnet, which Rogers calls Canada’s leading TV sports brand.

...

Rogers Media profit jumped to $58 million from $23 million in the same quarter last year as the success of the Blue Jays boosted advertising and ticket sales.

“Media drove much of the profit beat, so sustainability will be a topic of discussion,” said Citigroup analyst Michael Rollins.

Rogers in its earnings call with analysts said the results for the quarter ending Sept. 30 do not capture the playoffs, with further baseball upside expected in the fourth quarter.

The company’s profit profits grew nearly 40 per cent to $464 million from $332 million. Excluding items in the third quarter, profit was 92 cents a share versus the 82 cents expected by analysts. Revenue grew 4 per cent to $3.38 billion versus the consensus Street estimate for $3.32 billion.

[zilby]

That's at least encouraging, it certainly offers some incentive to keep the team competitive, seeing what it's done as of late.

[Mr.Raptorsingh]

Spend the dough, Rogers, to keep it going.

[bananaman]

They would have to be especially stupid to not spend the money needed to let this core compete next year. We sold our future for this short window of competing.

[duppyy]

Don't worry.. Rogers will find a way to say that they can't spend more money cause of the stupid NHL deal they made cause they are losing money on it. They will also say that the decline in Cable customers they can't spend a lot of money, blah blah blah.

[steamed hams]

Don't worry.. Rogers will find a way to say that they can't spend more money cause of the stupid NHL deal they made cause they are losing money on it. They will also say that the decline in Cable customers they can't spend a lot of money, blah blah blah.

Accompanied by the monthly $5 mystery increase in your internet bill.

[Sticks]

Rogers and bell, the biggest corporate crooks in canada.

I can't wait for the day Verizon a t &t and all the big companies are allowed to compete in canada.

[ldnk]

Yeah, but they increased profits by 40%. If they make the same revenue but spend 20% less on payroll, they could make even more profit!

[hsb]

No surprise, it's Toronto.

[protothe]

Don't worry.. Rogers will find a way to say that they can't spend more money cause of the stupid NHL deal they made cause they are losing money on it. They will also say that the decline in Cable customers they can't spend a lot of money, blah blah blah.

Accompanied by the monthly $5 mystery increase in your internet bill.

Considering that internet prices have actually fallen, I'll 'llow it. As long as they keep putting money into the Jays.

[Geddy]

Now they just need to imagine what kind of profit they would get if this carried on for an entire season.

[kayliecee]

Excuses for injecting cash into the team aside, it makes fiscal sense to invest. They have to see that unless they decide to see how recent success affects the sales of tickets, viewership, and merchandise in the year following just for giggles.

[Hendrix]

I don't understand why they didn't see this ahead of time and do something about it over the last x years. It always has seemed like baseball revenues in Toronto respond well to a winning team. More-so-than average teams would improve by increases in spending I think. I don't really understand why a billion dollar business hadn't figured it a good idea to increase profits by spending more in the past.

[Indiana Jones]

I don't understand why they didn't see this ahead of time and do something about it over the last x years. It always has seemed like baseball revenues in Toronto respond well to a winning team. More-so-than average teams would improve by increases in spending I think. I don't really understand why a billion dollar business hadn't figured it a good idea to increase profits by spending more in the past.

Considering when they bought the team there was little chance in hell of competing against the big spending Yanks and Sox, I think they've been stuck in a bit of an underdog mindset. Only recently have they come to realize that injecting money into the roster will make us competitive and a post-season berth is attainable.

Who am I kidding, it's because they've just been too cheap to spend the money.

[Hendrix]

I don't understand why they didn't see this ahead of time and do something about it over the last x years. It always has seemed like baseball revenues in Toronto respond well to a winning team. More-so-than average teams would improve by increases in spending I think. I don't really understand why a billion dollar business hadn't figured it a good idea to increase profits by spending more in the past.

Considering when they bought the team there was little chance in hell of competing against the big spending Yanks and Sox, I think they've been stuck in a bit of an underdog mindset. Only recently have they come to realize that injecting money into the roster will make us competitive and a post-season berth is attainable.

Who am I kidding, it's because they've just been too cheap to spend the money.

From what I can tell it's not 'cheap'. More along the lines of questionable decision making at a level of business where we're talking 100's of millions of dollars. You either have more profit or less profit. Cheapness implies that they are benefiting financially by not spending, but in reality it seems evident that they would benefit financially by spending more.

[Yeezus_]

Rogers and bell, the biggest corporate crooks in canada.

I can't wait for the day Verizon a t &t and all the big companies are allowed to compete in canada.

Tell me how exactly they are crooks though

[The Duke]

Re: Hendrix

I think spending in the past (at the same time the Yanks and the Sox) where spending obviously reduced the odds of actualizing on the increased profits and return on investment. With the Yanks & Sox not being as agreesive recently, its opened up the opportunity to spend on the team and increase the odds of now getting that increased profits and ROI.

Baseball is a rather individual sport, and I've always thought there is a higher correlation to spending on players and success. Its different than NBA, NFL, NHL where the team dynamics of these 3 sports highly contribute to success. At the end of the day its Batter vs Pitcher + Individual Defense. If you spend on the right players with increased individual skill, you will win (given appropirate sample) and that will translate to increased profits.

Now if you're getting into a bidding war, and don't have the massive local revenue (Yanks/Soxs) to offset crazy overpayment to top individual players, that wouldn't be the wisest spending and will reduce total ROI potential.

[Ell Curry]

Also an argument to be made that Anthopolous' good work collecting assets and talent made (and makes) spending worthwhile in a way that it wasn't earlier in his tenure or in the Ricciardi era.

If we bring back Price for 30M or whatever and he has the expected year and Stroman, Dickey and the 10-12M 4th starter (Estrada or no) have their expected seasons and the offense does what is expected, we are very likely to at least be competitive for the playoffs and generate good revenue as we seem to have done this year.

Whereas in the past, spending on good players to create a good team was somewhat based on hope, it's now more probable that spending to keep this team together will create a team that is good enough to generate late summer and fall interest and thus revenue.

I'm a casual/bandwagon fan, but seeing people talk about having to trade Encarnacion to save money is depressing. Surely we should just be counting our blessings that one of 2 players in baseball with multiple seasons with an OPS over 150 in the last 5 years is only going to cost 10M next year?

[LLJ]

Rogers: "We didn't spend a dime more this year and look what AA did without any new funds! We don't need to spend any more, AA got us fam."

[Duffman100]

Rogers employees will enjoy their bonus.