Salary space?

[aqib]

So Ryan, Overbay, Halladay (partial payment) all come off the books this year. By my count thats $23 million. Baustita is due for a big raise.

Anyone know what our budget is and how much room we haveto play with?

[babaganoosh]

We have as much room as AA wants. All he has to do is ask Rogers for the money and they're willing to spend it. It's just that at this point in time, he hasn't done so because there's no need yet. Had Halladay wanted to re-sign with Toronto, reports had it that Rogers would've forked out whatever money was needed, but Halladay just wasn't interested in it, so we just didn't spend that money.

[aqib]

WEll as big as Rogers is they aren't going to spend $150 million or even $100 million on payroll. Last year I think we were arounf $80 million. So I think committed salairies would be around $60 million

[babaganoosh]

I believe a while back that they said that if we were in contention, we wouldn't be able to spend like the Yankees, but we could be up there with the Red Sox, so I do think we can easily top $100 if the time is right and all the pieces are together.

[aqib]

I hope you are right, but 20K fans per game doesn't put enough money to justify a $100+ million payroll. I know Rogers has the money but that doesn't mean they will throw it around.

[babaganoosh]

Agreed. 20k fans just isn't going to cut it and having an exciting team which exceeded probably everyone's expectations didn't quite translate into more fans. It's a bit of a circular argument, but we need fans to increase payroll and it seems like the fans are waiting for a payroll increase to start attending games, regardless of the team's actual performance. I just hope we don't have a Tampa Bay type situation where being in the playoff hunt means half-empty stadiums.

[cooperstownersincanada]

AA has been deliberately vague about the payroll number. But honestly as bad as it looks on TV, so little income is generated from gate receipts that the fact that there are only 20,000 doesn't matter all that much. The big money comes from TV money and advertising and the Jays numbers on Rogers Sportsnet last year were excellent.

[babaganoosh]

That's where maybe Rogers owning Sportsnet hurts a little. If there was more competition, they could let the highest bidder broadcast the games, but that possibility really doesn't exist in this case. Whatever money the Jays make from Sportsnet, Sportsnet just bled that much more and Rogers as a whole have a 0 net effect. So they really have no real reason to push to increase the contract price in this case and the Jays probably stand to gain little to nothing.