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The Jays collect revenues in Canadian dollars and pay their players in U.S. dollars. On Thursday, the Canadian dollar was worth 73.36 cents against the U.S. dollar, an 11-year low. A year ago, it was worth about 88 cents. Shapiro says the 2016 payroll will rise – it was about US$140-million for the past season – but the exchange rate will chew up a sizeable chunk of the unspecified increase.

Shapiro says his goal is to build on the success of 2015 and make the team better for the long haul. But working for a public company beholden to shareholders, he knows he faces a delicate balance. The Jays are not the Red Sox, whose principal owner is one man, John Henry, who runs a company specializing in sports franchises and who, if he feels like it, can awaken one day and say sure, go ahead and spend US$217-million on David Price.

“There are obviously some other things that go into (the Jays’ payroll decisions), challenges with the exchange rate, and things that baseball fans shouldn’t have to think about, but when you run a business you do have to think about,” Shapiro said in Nashville. “Payroll is increasing, and now I think the obligation falls back on us to continue to run a successful business, to grow revenue, to support further increases in the years ahead.”

The Blue Jays certainly helped Rogers grow revenue in 2015. The team is part of Rogers’ media division, which also includes its various Sportsnet broadcast and digital platforms. For the first nine months of 2015, the media division had an adjusted operating profit of $58 million, an increase of 119 per cent over the same period in 2014, according to Rogers’ latest quarterly report. Much of that boost came from the Jays’ increased attendance (21 of their final 22 home games were sellouts) and new revenue from Sportsnet, which drew unprecedented TV ratings for Jays games.