The only thing worse than Bell and Rogers sharing ownership of the Toronto Maple Leafs is Rogers owning the majority stake in the club.
As announced last month, Canada's most hated company has purchased a controlling share in the Toronto Maple Leafs. If you want to know whether this is a good or a bad thing, just look at the Toronto Blue Jays.
The Toronto Blue Jays stink. They have garbage management and are extremely unpopular. I recently saw a survery that had over 12K responses that said 95% of Jays fans wanted a change in management.
Rogers announced, hours later, that both Ross Atkins and Mark Shapiro would be returning for next season. That's right, the Blue Jays season ended, and within hours, Rogers got their fans to already stop caring about next season.
And now they are in charge of the Leafs.
Rogers is bad news for the Toronto Maple Leafs
Short of extending Brad Treliving's contract, there is hardly anything that the Leafs could do that is worse for the long-term future of their team than handing control over to Rogers.
A greedy corporate owner who cares nothing about the fans isn't good for anyone. But at least with Rogers and Bell keeping each other in check, Larry Tannenbaum was able to exercise some control.
Now, I don't love Tannenbaum, but he's basically the best owner of alltime compared to Rogers.
The Leafs already are a badly run team, and they aren't going to improve now that Rogers is in charge, if their record with the Blue Jays is any indication.
I don't agree with letting the fans run the team, but when management is as unpopular as Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins are, it's not going to work. It can't work, it never has worked, and it never will.
These guys aren't going to suddenly figure it out, and by the time the owners realize that, Vladdy Guerrero will likely be playing elsewhere. But hey, the stadium looks cool!
There is nothing positive anyone can say about the Blue Jays right now. They are an even more poorly run team than the Leafs, and they just doubled down on the worst thing about themselves. The Leafs have this to look forward to.
If Rogers cared at all about the people they sell phones and cable to, they would pull the plug on their corporate sports ownership, because they suck at it.