BAUTISTA TAKES STOCK OF ROGERS ’ REVENUE REPORTING

It’s clear that Jose Bautista wishes Rogers Communications was more up front about its reporting of revenues concerning the Blue Jays. Toronto front- office officials have often been hamstrung by budgetary restraints imposed from headquarters without regard to all the revenues that the ball team should have at its disposal. The value of TV revenue that goes directly to the club is unknown. “It’s no secret that in a publicly- traded company everybody can track performance fairly easily,” said Bautista on Monday. “Stock prices are closely monitored by the whole financial world. I think there is a direct correlation with the success of ( Rogers) earnings per share after we started experiencing success. Are they going to put it out in the media and say ‘ because of the Jays, we made all this money?’ No. But everybody can read between the lines. There is no way to measure how much money the team makes when we win because of the way we’re structured. It’s really unfair to talk about revenue and payroll. To me, those things for this organization, are non- existent.” Bautista knows that a contract the size of the one he wants to extract from the Blue Jays if they are going to stop him from being a free agent at the end of the season, must get clearance from the corporate boardroom. “It’s just a matter of are they willing to go there? It’s not just about Ross ( Atkins) and Mark ( Shapiro). I can’t say that. Some of that decisionmaking on a contract the size I presented has to come from ownership. How much? I don’t know. I don’t know how long their rope is to make exclusive decisions on contracts like that.”