Rogers Says Its Teams Are Worth $25 B-- But They Need Gov't Media Money

It used to be said that Canada is run by just 15 families. It wasn’t pretty, but they didn’t bring attention to the fact. The current ruling compact has no such compunction. They splash their names and authority everywhere. The broadcast giants may be the least reserved.

But it has been a tough week for Rogers, the “your business is important to us” folks. Okay, tough week is relative when you own sports properties worth an estimated $25 billion. Still. The owners/ sponsors/ broadcasters of the Edmonton Oilers and Ottawa Senators watched as their teams bit the frozen dust in the NHL playoffs. The demise of Connor McDavid’s Oilers, finalists the past two season for the Stanley Cup, was a bitter blow. 

That leaves just one Canadian team, the appropriately named Montreal Canadiens, as the only survivor of seven Canadian franchises to advance in the 2026 playoffs. Public Service Note: No Canadian team has won the Stanley Cup since the Habs did it in 1993. But you knew that. In any event, the Habs bushwhacked Tampa and so the Cup dream lives on in the one domestic team.

This brutal triage of no Canadian contenders was not a comforting thought. From now till mid June, the panelists on Hockey Night In Canada will be talking about the Habs and teams in TrumpLand. Much of the endless non-hockey portion of the games is already strained enough with bro talk and white board eye glazers. Poor Scott Oake deserves better as he retires.

Over in the NBA, the sole Canadian team, the Toronto Raptors at least made the playoffs. The problem being that Rogers shares broadcasts of the Raptors with their former MLSE pals at Bell. So any glory has been parsed with the lads who have been snipping at Rogers with predatory pricing. How unfriendly. And now the Raps are eliminateed in seven by Cleveland.

And let’s not forget the Toronto Blue Jays, another MLSE chattel who came within one spectacular catch by a Dodgers outfielder of winning the 2025 World Series. So far 2026 has not been as kind to the Jays as was last season. Beset by injuries they’re a game below .500 at this writing. But, as they said in Monty Python, “there’s hope for a constitutional settlement”. 

In the Rogers company offices on Mt. Pleasant, the plan is to now buy the remaining 25 percent of MLSE from Toronto businessman Larry Tanenbaum then bundle all these non-winning sports teams into one Hulk Hogan consortium. When that’s done they can sell off small pieces of the whole to offset debt load. Nice work if you can get it. 

None of this fun ’n games was any consolation last week, however, as Rogers offered buyout packages to half its 20,000 workers. Vladimir Guerrero and Auston Matthews are not among the 10K targeted for the pink slip. But plenty of others drawing a company cheque will be. Apparently the most expensive carrier service in the Western world (almost) and showing up six hours late for a service appointment for which you booked off work isn’t what it used to be. 

Not for them a Blue Jays World Series or a Maple Leafs Stanley Cup. But as the venerable NFL legend Vince Lombardi said, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going”. Except in this case Rogers is going through Ottawa to see if they can get a piece of the free money sloshing around in the journalism racket. They’ve seen how even pipsqueak outfits like The National Observer are on the Heritage Ministry’s Local Journalism Initiative dollar-grab.

As Blacklocks has reported on the National Observer haul. “Payments totaled $1,377,773 in direct wage subsidies. The federal aid was in addition to $643,743 in separate grants paid by the heritage department to the National Observer under a Canadian Periodical Fund program, and $435,400 in sole-sourced federal news clipping contracts.” 

Unreported are the amounts it qualifies for from the Google fund - $185,822.33 last year - and tax credits up to $29,750 per newsroom employee. The National Observer informs readers on its website that the government provides 20 per cent of its revenue. 

So you can see why Rogers and Bell, the two behemoths in the cramped Canadian media world, would tell their friends in Ottawa that what’s good for the goose is good in Gander. And North Bay. And Wetaskiwin. Or where ever else they send their signals. Their estimated remaining 10,000 employees need love too.

As former CRTC vice chair Peter Menzies notes, “Multiply that by the $29,750 annual value of the Journalism Labour Tax Credit and the Big Telecom giant is looking at adding just under $30 million to its bottom line. Throw in access to the Canada Periodical Fund and Local Journalism Initiative and its take could be north of $40 million annually.

“Thus will the nation’s legacy media status quo become more firmly frozen in time, making it even more difficult for anyone trying to conduct journalism without the government’s approval and assistance.” In short, CBC is everyone now. 

Here comes our predictable lament for journalism. Having convinced the federal government under Mr. Katy Perry that, unless it spread its arms wide, the feds would be blamed for the demise of services that fewer and fewer people consume. Gasp, no more Schitt’s Creek reruns? Because the Liberace’s like nothing more than a self-induced panic, it wasn’t long till we had journalists covering elections covering the people who were funding them. Pretzel journalism

In the beginning around 2019 we were told this baksheesh was to protect the minnows in the pond. But anyone who followed the Trudeau years could see that the line was written in sand. Soon then big boys would asking fr their share. And that day is now. Everyone will say there is no corruption in such a system. But they didn’t live through the Trudeau denouement and the media’s celebration of Elbows Up Carney. 

So here’s the Habs in their quest for a Cup. If it’s true the winners write history then they will be well served by Rogers.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his 2023 book Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, was voted a Top 20 greatest professional hockey books of all time by bookauthority.org . https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1770415300?linkCode=gs2&tag=uuid0a1-20 His previous book with his son Evan, Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed Hockey is now available on Amazon. His new poetry collection In Other Words is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca and on Kindle books at https://www.amazon.ca/dp/106980270