Paying the Bills

As a cable customer, Rogers Cable, owner of the "Dome Formerly Known as Skydome" and host of baseball's American League Blue Jays, wishes to offer me a chance to win a pair of tickets to "see the NFL's Buffalo Bills lock horns with the Pittsburgh Steelers" in a pre-season contest. The scheme is part of a multi-year deal bringing NFL teams here to show Canadians what real football is like (not Canadian football with its silly three-downs rule). I imagine its real purpose is to see if Toronto would support an NFL team of our own...and, of course, make oodles of money for Rogers.

Lord knows Ted Rogers needs money desperately. His company is the largest cable operator in Canada. He runs TV networks, wireless communication services, phone services internet service and the list goes on. For years, now, he's been begging me through endless mailings, flyers and ads to buy more services from him. Oh, and did I mention he owns the Blue Jays along with their fancy digs?--a facility he paid approximately $21 million for in 2004. Now, I don't begrudge a man trying to eke out a living in these rough times of revenue sharing that virtually ensures that no billionaire owner ever assumes any risk of losing money, but what about the poor Toronto taxpayers who were fleeced out of their hard-earned tax money to pay for the dome in the first place?

Teddy paid less than five cents on the dollar for the magnificent house that Art built and his first order of business was to rename the structure to "Rogers Centre". Shrewd thinking. Nobody could ever accuse him of practically stealing the Skydome because you see it's the Rogers Centre. Under then Toronto Mayor Art Eggleton's watchful eye, the retractable roof Skydome was constructed at a cost of a whopping $487 million--almost half a billion dollars! You could invade a small country for a price tag like that, couldn't you? Hell, we could have annexed Alaska when the Americans weren't looking. Who would notice?

Getting back to Roger's offer...he wants me to see the Bills and the Steelers live. I'm not sure why, though. You see, even if I watch them on the tube, there's a good chance that I would be watching them on his TV network. Of course! He wants me to buy his beer!

Note: Rogers bought Skydome from Chicago-based investors group Sportsco International who had purchased it out of bankruptcy in 1999 for about $92 million. But this doesn't make nearly as interesting a story.