TORONTO -- Mark Shapiro has signed a five-year contract renewal to stay with the Blue Jays as president and CEO, Rogers Communications announced Friday, locking in the leader of an organization that is suddenly at the center of the baseball world.
This past season’s run to Game 7 of the World Series showed us the best of the Blue Jays. And while that dream run felt like it came so suddenly, many of the factors that fueled it had been building for years under Shapiro.
“His vision and leadership when he came in set the stage with how he wanted us to invest and build this team for the future,” said Edward Rogers, chair of the Blue Jays and executive chair of Rogers Communications. “It’s something he started on his first day. That started with building facilities that players want to come to and building a culture where players collaborate and work as a team. Those are intangible things that are sometimes harder to comprehend, but he was passionate about it. His leadership style rubs off on the entire team. You saw it this past season, a team that liked each other, worked extremely hard and were great characters. That starts at the top.”
Shapiro’s role in Toronto is unique, filling the traditional definitions of “president and CEO” in ways many other front offices don’t. Under Shapiro, the Blue Jays have Ross Atkins leading baseball operations and Marnie Starkman leading business operations, but Shapiro remains actively involved in both. His ability to bring those two sides together -- which isn’t always a happy marriage in baseball -- has perhaps been his greatest talent in Toronto, including leading expansive renovations to both Rogers Centre and the club’s player development complex in Dunedin, Fla.
“There’s not a lot of genuine CEOs who are responsible in totality for both. Historically, the owner has played more of that role,” Rogers said. “When we were hiring Mark, a lot of people in the league pointed at him and that was one of the key reasons. He brings core competency experience to both sides. He does have the full span of control.”
Everything around the Blue Jays is caught up in the same sense of momentum now. Their World Series run jolted baseball to life in Canada and the eye-popping TV numbers backed that up. At the recent MLB Winter Meetings, the Blue Jays were the talk of Orlando, Fla., already having landed Dylan Cease on a seven-year, $210 million deal. This move was big and bold, jumping the rest of the market entirely, but that’s who the Blue Jays are now.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is about to begin his $500 million extension. Cease’s new record for the biggest free-agent contract in club history will begin just as George Springer -- the previous owner with his $150 million deal -- enters the final year of his. In the past, the Blue Jays were challenged to bring players north, whether that be due to financial restrictions, their competitiveness or the border itself. The times have changed.
“All of those barriers are gone,” Rogers said.
When Shapiro spoke following the Blue Jays’ Game 7 loss in the World Series, his reflection on that run was one of his finest moments with the organization, capturing all of the reasons Canada fell in love with the 2025 team.
“It wasn’t just that the team won, it was how they won. It wasn’t just that the players on the field accomplished championships and great things, it was what they stood for as they did it,” Shapiro said in early November. “Ultimately, you could watch them play the game and know what their identity was as a team and our identity as an organization. I think that each of us, across the country, saw us in them. We saw things that inspired us, things that lifted us, the reasons to believe, the reasons to feel belonging and a part of something.”
Rogers echoed that. When we think of ownership -- or even Shapiro in his role working with ownership, we think of budgets and infrastructure. Watching the Blue Jays come so close in the World Series, though, Rogers experienced something you can’t find anywhere else.
“The excitement that came through the playoff run was truly national,” Rogers said. “To see millions of people get inspired and hopeful and happy, and to spend time with their loved ones, there’s no other business in the world where you can have that effect. It’s humbling to see that and to be a small part of that. Besides the excitement of the drive to win, that, to me, is something that is one of the highlights of my life and it’s hard to replicate that in any other business.”
The 2026 season will be Shapiro’s 11th with the Blue Jays. He’s been part of building the foundations for this new era of baseball, and finally, it feels like that era is taking off.