Rogers strikes out as team owner
Dear Rogers, I was going through the monthly love letter you send to my house. I’m having trouble figuring out a bunch of what’s in there.
What is a “Customer Choice Package” and why does it cost the odd price of $13.64? And I’m pretty sure I’ve never watched anything on the “HD Nature & Adventure Pak.” I’m not saying you slipped that one in there — I order all kinds of things when I’m sleepwalking — but it doesn’t ring any bells.
By the time you get to the end, it’s an awful lot of money.
This doesn’t count my cell, which is a company phone.
When I got back from an extended work release in Europe this summer, someone from accounting wandered up to the newsroom with a letter opener and tried to stab me to death. My roaming charges had driven him mad.
All this to say that I and just about every other sucker in town is forking over cash to you like a guy rumbled in a back alley. Why won’t you do us a solid in return? Here’s a theory.
The best thing we can say about that public-outreach program you call a baseball team is that it’s leaving Wednesday night.
We’ve had enough of them for a while. Given the way the last few weeks have shaken out, they’re probably sick of us, too. A little time apart may or may not make hearts grow fonder.
That’s up to you. All the animus over another season that’s ended up in the ditch has fallen onto the guys working the front of the house.
We’ve been at their throats and they’ve done what frustrated people do — they’ve kept that pile rolling downhill, onto each other mostly.
Based on how many times I’ve seen customers turn into ranting lunatics at a Rogers outlet, this “Let the employees eat our hot garbage” model is pretty key to your set-up. They’re not to blame. You are. For the 12 years you’ve owned this team, it’s been a disappointment. Players, GMs and coaches have come and gone — generations of them. You’re the constant.
The employees are hired to be fired. That’s true everywhere, but nowhere more so than at a ball club without the willingness to overreach. Getting a job with the Jays must seem like getting hired on at a coal mine, being handed a shovel and told to dig until you hit China. You’ll give up before you get anywhere.
You have only one role in this process — to sign cheques. And you won’t sign the cheques.
You pushed the Blue Jays out the door this year with the 23rd-highest payroll in baseball. Seven of the top 10 have made the playoffs in the past two years.
This tiresome sideways argument that money need have nothing to do with success does not wash. Don’t say the word “Oakland” unless the next six words out of your mouth are “Billy Beane is joining the board.”
Money may not be causative, but it’s correlative enough that it’s worth a damned try. But you won’t try that, for very good reason.
You’ve identified a niche in our market and expertly exploited it. The niche isn’t baseball. It’s failure.
Failure is contagious. That’s why your parents didn’t let you spend all your time with the kids who hung out behind the 7-11. This town is mired in sporting failure, which suits everyone who owns a sports team and no one who roots for one. As long as no one is succeeding, everyone gets to float along on a profitable raft of mediocrity. If the choice is between rotten vegetables and rancid meat, fans still have to eat. This inertial process encourages caution and fear of great change amongst your employees. They know the boss can live with a loser. You’ve never fielded anything but. What you’ve taught them you won’t countenance are boat-rockers and spendthrifts. No orders need be given. Nobody needs to be warned to keep deals small and safe. This is a function of the risk-averse, cheapskate culture you’ve created. Still, you must worry that one team might break the cycle and reorient the way things work. If the Jays turn into the Texas Rangers, what does that mean for your new purchases working out of the ACC? Worse yet, what if the Raptors or Leafs get good? That’s two months of baseball season everyone in town tunes out of. They tune back in just around the time the Jays traditionally begin losing hold of the rope. You can never say this, but given the marketplace and your position within it, there is only one thing better than three losers. And lying between the jump from three losers to three winners is a big, career-killing drop. Safer to stick with the status quo. So you won’t be spending the money. That’s your business, literally. I like money too, so I wouldn’t either. But it would be a pleasantly surprising change of pace if you didn’t pretend otherwise.