A few months ago, the folks at Rogers Media, the TV-and-radio operation which also owns the Toronto Blue Jays, a big chunk of the colossus Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment and the national rights to NHL games, quietly tweaked their name to better emphasize their increasing focus on sports. Under new president Jordan Banks, who joined last September, Rogers Media would thereafter be known as Rogers Sports & Media.

Yup: Rogers S&M™.

Which, in retrospect, is perhaps the perfect name for a company that decided to go all in on sports just as a microscopic pathogen decided that professional sports would, for the foreseeable future, be sitting this one out.

I mean, if Rogers is going to live in a world of hurt, you hope it’s at least getting some perverse pleasure out of it.

To be fair, there may also be a bit of a pleasure for some of us watching from the sidelines: NASCAR fans aren’t the only ones who enjoy a car crash or two. (Of course, with the racist convulsions it’s experiencing these days, NASCAR doesn’t even need to put vehicles on the track to serve up its own can’t-look-away car crash.)

On Monday morning, Banks kicked off what used to be known as Canada’s TV upfronts, the week in which domestic commercial broadcasters would invite the advertising community to a series of splashy sales presentations previewing their biggest shows for the fall season. Of course, those presentations also included opportunities to rub elbows with the stars of those Los Angeles-based shows.

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