New Jays refreshing breath of fresh air
How much higher can the Blue Jays soar?
A week after a series of incredible trades, all indicators of renewed interest in the team are way up. Ratings for the three-game weekend series with the Kansas City Royals averaged around a million viewers per game. David Price’s first game pitching as a Jay set a non-season/ home opener record with 1,390,000 viewers for Sportsnet. The rising ratings help raise the team’s average for the year up to 649,000.
The numbers are also gaining momentum. That yearly average doesn’t include the last three Twins games this past week, with the series ending up averaging 1.24 million viewers over the sweep.
Ticket sales have also skyrocketed, with reports from secondary market sellers such as Stubhub and analysts such as Seatgeek showing indicators the Jays are the hottest ticket in town.
Merchandise sales are up 40 per cent — approximately 1,400 jerseys sold last weekend — with the team saying it was one of the biggest merchandise sales weekends ever.
This weekend’s Yankees matchup has become must-see TV, with much talk of the three series left between the two division rivals after Sunday.
Even beyond the measurables, everything is coming up Blue Jays. After years of players balking at coming to Toronto, new pitcher Price has already proven to be a social media master, charming fans on Twitter with his positive attitude and smartly seeking out a young fan to give him a jersey. The almost brawl with the Royals perfectly sets up what could be an intense and potentially personal playoff matchup, should the chips fall that way.
Obviously there is a lot of baseball left, but the Jays are already seeing the benefits of success and being Canada’s team.
“Over the weekend, (the merchandise sales) it appears to be the highest numbers we’ve ever had for a weekend. We’re in new territory I guess is what it all boils down too.” said Anthony Partipilo, vice-president, marketing and merchandising for the Jays.
“If you take a look at the numbers we are getting, from online sales in particular, about half the sales are coming from outside of Ontario. People are jumping online and purchasing jersey, caps and all sorts of things from Alberta, B.C., from the East Coast, Maritimes, from all over the country. These are shifts that are significant that we are certainly paying attention to.”
Partipilo remains cautious, as there are plenty of games still left to play, but he also believes there also remains another level of casual fan that could only ratchet interest up even higher if the team continues to win and eventually make the postseason.
“It’s only really been a week, but we saw an immediate and dramatic shift, the reaction from all perspectives, certainly ticketing and merchandising and broadcast, the numbers are there,” he says. “I think there’s another wave of fans that are just starting to pay attention, where they might not have been before. I think clearly it changes thing, not necessarily on a day-to-day basis, but I think it changes things materially for the national brand.”
With the bandwagon for the Jays rapidly filling up, it’s another example of the pent-up demand for a winner in these parts, and the obvious appetite for the team to break the longest playoff drought — 22 years — in Major League Baseball. With the Leafs embarking on a rebuilding year, and the Raptors success building a similar sense of excitement — and a recent fanmade Jays-centric “We the North” video perfectly capture the similar sentiment — this a great opportunity for the Jays to recapture the excitement of their glory years.
It also doesn’t hurt the team’s ownership that such success also adds more ammunition to the ongoing rivalry between TSN and Sportsnet. In recent years, as the Jays’ hopes and dreams tended to die in the summer, they didn’t provide as much competition for the CFL, which is TSN’s big summer-fall property. Last week, according to Chris Zelkovich’s Great Canadian Ratings Report on Yahoo, the Jays grabbed the top four spots with their ratings in the one million range, followed by three CFL games that were in the 500,000-600,000 range. With Sportsnet and TSN’s feud now often centring on an ongoing competition over which is the most powerful sports brand in Canada, the baseball team’s soaring ratings can only help bolster Rogers’s case.
So whether it was the team sensing an opportunity, GM Alex Anthopoulos making trades like his job depended on it — and likely did — whatever the reason for the Jays going all-in, the ancillary effects are already being felt.
For sports fans that often describe themselves as tortured, it’s definitely a nice feeling to experience.
With the bandwagon for the Jays rapidly filling up, it’s another example of the pent-up demand for a winner in these parts