TORONTO — The Rogers Centre roof was closed for Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred when he dropped by for Tuesday’s game between the Blue Jays and Red Sox.

At least it wasn’t leaking.

That said, Manfred made it clear that the 29-year-old building is in serious need of updates — at the least — which was no doubt music to the ears of Jays president Mark Shapiro, who has been lobbying for some renos to the tired venue almost since the day he got here.

The frank-talking commissioner also offered a rather sharp rebuke to another Rogers division — the broadcast arm of the team — for not playing ball. But more on that later.

As for the Rogers Centre, Manfred essentially stated what’s obvious to Jays fans who have explored other ballparks, that the dome falls well below the standards of most big-league venues.

“The stadium when it was built was a great building, one of our best,” Manfred said in a press conference, part of a regular stop to MLB cities. “Given the passage of time, the building is probably out of date in terms of the amenities that are available in many of our ballparks.

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“So many of our stadiums have millennial areas, things that have been built and become more popular recently. While the building is fundamentally sound, it needs an update to make it as economically viable as possible.”

Forgive the snickers from fans gouged for $12 beers when economic viability is mentioned, but the commissioner does have a point. Compared to the majority of stadiums around MLB, the fan experience at the Rogers Centre is lacking.

“I do know that there’s limited premium seating in this facility,” Manfred said. “In a market as robust as Toronto, if it were my club I’d probably want a lot more than you have.”

Manfred saved his most pointed comments for Rogers-owned Sportsnet and the way it handled last week’s MLB/Facebook Live broadcast of a game between the Jays and Kansas City Royals.

Photo by GETTY IMAGES

Specifically, the commissioner was unimpressed with the way the broadcaster didn’t keep fans informed where the game could be seen. On radio broadcasts the previous day, the game was billed as “radio only” and by the time of first pitch, there was mass confusion among the fan base as to where they could watch.

“We make a distinct effort through the club and through baseball and frankly didn’t get a lot of help from the rights holder in terms of publicizing where that game was going to be,” Manfred said.

Clearly Rogers was irked at losing three games to Facebook this summer (two more are scheduled for later in the season). And given the ratings success the team continues to have, you can understand why the network would object.

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But Manfred rather forcefully dumped over that notion, noting that the Jays have a more favourable broadcast arrangement than many teams, including this week’s visitors, the Red Sox. Because they operate in a Canadian market and thus don’t factor into U.S. television ratings, Jays games are rarely picked up by national broadcasters south of the border.

Manfred’s point: Rogers is fortunate it doesn’t lose more games.

“We generate literally tens of millions of dollars per club in central revenue,” Manfred said. “That revenue is largely generated by selling media rights and many many clubs around baseball have 10 or more games that are picked and put on national only platforms in order to generate that revenue.

“Toronto has been very fortunate in terms of its rights holders. They’ve given up very very few games and received exactly the same revenue for a long number of years. Three games as a contribution to receive that national revenue is really a small contribution compared to the rest of the league.”

Manfred went on to defend the Facebook Live initiative as a way to continue to grow the game.

“From our perspective, it’s very important that the demographics of the audience consuming those games on Facebook is about 20 years younger on average than on our other broadcasts,” Manfred said. “We’re focused on the next generation of baseball fans and a key part of that focus is making sure we are in a position to deliver on platforms where younger people want to consume content.”

As for attendance issues that are a concern league-wide thanks to brutal weather, Manfred acknowledged the hit. The Jays have had two games postponed in Cleveland, another cancelled here when ice caused holes in the roof and played in frigid conditions in Texas, Baltimore and New York.

“This has been a unique April for us,” the commissioner said. “We set a record for the number of games that were cancelled and probably more troubling played a lot of games in really tough weather.”