Are you an investing type of person? Like a gamble once in a while? Sometimes play a hunch? Into sports? You might hear a company based in central Canada, but operating nation-wide, calling your name.
The company is Rogers Communications. Rogers runs one of Canada’s biggest cable television companies. You might have a Fido phone. Or a Shaw dish. Or a SportsNet subscription. That’s Rogers.
Rogers just bought the last bit of MLSE it didn’t already own. MLSE is Maple Leaf Sports Entertainment. It owns the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, the Toronto Raptors basketball team, Major League Soccer’s Toronto FC, the Canadian Football League Toronto Argonauts, the Toronto Blue Jays and even some team called the Toronto Marlies (American Hockey League affiliate of the Maple Leafs).
Add the Rogers Centre in Toronto. And that Sportsnet TV network. And more. Whew!
Here is where it gets tricky. Rogers says MLSE all by itself, because it’s under one owner, is now worth about $25 billion. But the price they just paid for the 25 per cent they didn’t own means MLSE is actually worth “only” $17 billion. Same value they have said for the past year. And the year before that, as deals were still being signed and promises made, they said maybe $12 billion all in.
The kicker? Right now, today, out on the stock market, the entire Rogers company, including MLSE, values all of Rogers, now including MLSE at just about $25 billion in total.
Think about this for a minute. This means the cell phone networks they own, the satellite setups, the cable customers, the actual television and radio stations, are all only valued, right now, at $8 billion. If you throw in the debt Rogers owes, and maybe the fact TV and radio, like print is struggling, and also the fact Bell and Telus Rogers are at each other’s throats in the cell phone business, maybe it all makes sense.
Sports is worth twice as much as all the other stuff combined, and lots more besides!
The FIFA World Cup has been in North America before. But this time around, it seems like both America and Canada really woke up to the idea there is something else besides hockey and football. Soccer is big in the rest of the world. Really, really big. And all sports are getting bigger all the time.
Despite all the extra charges and costs, teams and leagues and owners see more and more money coming in. More money for players. More money for stadiums.
And of course, more money for owners!
Millionaires don’t own teams any more. It’s billionaires. In major sports leagues, the only league that limits corporate ownership is the NFL. Every team except the community-owned Green Pay Packers is an individual. The most valuable sports team in the world is the Dallas Cowboys. About $18 billion. Do you think Rogers is eyeballing a NFL franchise in Toronto? Can that happen?
Does it really matter? Vancouver and Montreal can be next targets for Rogers. And what the heck, instead of Rogers shares, one can always buy a Sport Select ticket for a shot at a little bit of paradise.
Jeff Burgar