Blue Jays, Maple Leafs Owner to Put Stake in Sports Empire Up for Sale

Now having amassed one of the world’s largest and most powerful sports portfolios, Rogers Communications plans to sell a piece of those assets.

The owner of nearly every major pro sports team and facility in Toronto, as well as several other major holdings across Canada, Rogers confirmed early Wednesday a long-expected move to sell a minority stake in its consolidated sports and media properties.

This latest step by Rogers will closely follow a separate agreement with Kilmer Sports worth $3.1 billion to acquire the final 25% of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment that it didn’t already own. Rogers—the majority owner of the parent company of the NHL’s Maple Leafs and NBA’s Raptors—has long had the option to buy this last bit of MLSE equity, and it had previously signaled its intent to exercise it. 

The Kilmer transaction, expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year, will further cement the status of Rogers as one of the world’s most powerful sports ownership entities. Rogers, however, also sees reselling a piece of the combined sports and media assets as a way to improve shareholder value and reduce its long-term debt that still nears $25 billion. The company is aiming for a minority stake sale, or potentially multiple agreements, in the first half of 2027.

“I’m confident that we will be able to present that this is a very premium collection of assets and there are limited opportunities for buying in,” Rogers CFO Glenn Brandt said Wednesday on an analyst call. “I do not expect discounts and we will work hard to drive as strong a valuation as we can. But that the market will determine what that is. … The exercise here is to sell a non-voting minority interest in common equity of the combined entities and to participate in the growth opportunity for that investment.”

Times of Transition

In the meantime, many of the key teams in the Rogers sports portfolio are in a marked state of change. MLB’s Blue Jays have heavily regressed this season to last place in the AL East division after last year’s celebrated run to Game 7 of the World Series, and it will likely be a seller at a muddled trade deadline coming up on Aug. 3. 

The Maple Leafs, famously without a Stanley Cup since 1967, recently brought in embattled hockey executive John Chayka as GM and franchise icon Mats Sundin as a senior executive advisor. 

The Raptors have a pending trade with the Clippers to bring back star forward Kawhi Leonard, who led the team to the league title in 2019, but that deal is on hold while a league investigation into the Los Angeles franchise continues. 

Toronto FC of MLS, meanwhile, will likely be among that league’s beneficiaries from the now concluded FIFA men’s World Cup held in North America. 

Rogers also posted a 53% boost in second-quarter sports and media revenue to $851 million, beating analyst estimates, as the impact of taking full control of MLSE drives further benefits for the company. Adjusted earnings in the sector soared from a prior $5.7 million to $49 million.

Overall, though, the company reported a net loss of $515 million for the quarter, due to a one-time, non-cash charge of $730 million related to the final MLSE equity purchase.