With four additional games at Rogers Centre, the Blue Jays earned about $75 million in additional revenue. (Photo by Thomas Skrlj/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
MLB Photos via Getty Images
The 2025 World Series will go down as one of the greatest of all time. With 73 innings played, it is most certainly the longest in the modern era. The results are in from a television perspective: the World Series averaged 15.7 million viewers in the United States, which is 52% more than the average number of viewers for the 2025 NBA finals, and up 11% from last year.
In Canada, nearly half the nation tuned in to watch their countrymen fall to the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 7. With the U.S., Canada, and Japan all playing integral roles in the series, Game 7 averaged 51 million viewers in those three countries combined, making it the most-watched MLB game in 34 years. Baseball is most certainly not dying.
That is the macro view. On a micro view, the Toronto Blue Jays may have lost the World Series, but they won in the game of revenues. Last season the club had $92 million in gate receipts. That team finished in last place. We don’t yet have revenue numbers (or projections) for the 2025 team, but suffice it to say that a team that won 74 games and came in last in the American League last season saw a dramatic jump this year when they won 94 games and won the AL East. In just crude numbers, attendance jumped from 2.68 million to 2.85 million, which was the fourth biggest increase in the sport.
And the above does not count the playoffs. Per MLB’s collective bargaining agreement, gate receipts for the post-season are calculated from the guaranteed games in each round (so, in each league: two in the Wild Card round; two in Division round; four in the Championship Series; and four in the World Series). Those revenues are then split among all of the teams participating in the playoffs. The bigger the venue, the more expensive the ticket, the more revenue that is generated to be split amongst the players.
However, every game after the minimum is gravy for the home team. This post-season Toronto hosted two additional Championship Series games against the Mariners and two additional World Series games against the Dodgers.
Here is the listed attendance for each:
- ALCS Game 6: 44,764
- ALCS Game 7: 44,770
- World Series Game 6: 44,710
- World Series Game 7: 44,713
While the exact face price for all playoff tickets is not readily available, the Blue Jays did suggest that the tickets were within historical range. That usually means between $340 and $550. If you simply assume that the “average” ticket price at Rogers Centre for the final two games against Seattle and Los Angeles were $400, and you assume that the club “comps” 5% of their tickets for VIPs and other team and league personnel, then there were an additional 170,000 tickets sold over those four games. At $400 a pop, that is an additional $68 million in revenue. Further, two recent studies claim that the average fan spends anywhere from $32 per game on concessions to $56 per game. This number, of course, is noisy and quite variable. If you don’t account for post-season inflation, specialty items, and fans’ desire to get souvenir cups, etc., and you assume $40 customer, that is an additional $6.8 million in revenue over those four contests. Without even factoring in parking or merchandise, or local broadcast revenues, the Blue Jays stand to take in an additional $75 million from their long run in the playoffs.
Yes, the club lost the final two games at home, and lost the finale in heart-breaking fashion in eleven agonizing innings, but for Rogers Communications, the sole owner of the team, the outcome was nearly perfect. That $75 million is a nice down payment on the first $50 million that will be due to franchise stalwart and post-season hero Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who last year signed a 14-year/$500 million contract that will kick in next season. And the additional revenue and halo effect of a long World Series run may factor in the team’s decision to re-sign infielder Bo Bichette, who becomes a free agent this week.
Trophies aside, sometimes you can win for losing.
