5:03 pm - November 8, 2025
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If Canadian music sounds a bit sadder over the next year, there’s an excellent factor: Throughout the nation, fans are coming to grips with the heartbreak of an agonizing World Series loss. In Toronto, where fans of all stripes tuned in, the city is feeling the weight.
For one marvelous week, the city ended up being the center of not simply sports, however culture. As the Toronto Blue Jays played the Los Angeles Dodgers for baseball’s most significant reward, the video game originated not simply from the Rogers Centre, however homes, bars and even music places.
It wasn’t simply that Toronto was seeing baseball. Baseball entered into the city’s cultural rhythm, blurring the lines in between the video game and the music that soundtracks it. Because minute, baseball ended up being a mirror for Canadian culture– unifying generations, artists and categories around a group that felt larger than the city it bet.
For bands who had programs on the night of the essential Video game 7 on Saturday night (Nov. 1), they got innovative– seeing the video game on an iPad onstage, as the Beaches did, or predicting it right behind them, like Born Ruffians.
At the Rogers Centre, artists entered into the texture of the video game. Baseball collector and superfan Geddy Lee of Rush was a routine sight as he stayed glued to his seat throughout the series, Arkells frontman Max Kerman signed up with a busker to sing Unfortunately Hip tunes for patriotic fans, Justin Bieber brought his partner Hailey to capture the video game from Los Angeles, dressed up in a Bieber Blue Jays jersey (for pitcher Shane Bieber, not Justin).
Even Drake, who is notoriously connected with the Toronto Raptors, leapt from his common courtside area at the Scotiabank Arena to a personal box at Rogers Centre to view Games 1, 6 and 7 of the World Series. At the OVO-presented Vybz Kartel concert in Toronto, the Jamaican dancehall star wore a customized Blue Jays jersey.
Where many rap artists drop bars about Steph Curry, Kobe Bryant or Allen Iverson, baseball’s cultural currency typically feels as classic as the video game itself. Tunes connected with baseball tend to go back 4 years, if not 10, and referral gamers from a century earlier: more Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio than Shohei Ohtani and Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
That may alter now. From Vladdy’s “born ready” swagger to Ernie Clement’s power of friendship, the 2025 Blue Jays had plenty of adorable characters and stories to acquire. The demographics of baseball are likewise altering.
While basketball promotes the video game going international, baseball has actually existed and continues to spread out everywhere throughout the world. This series had effect gamers from Canada, the United States, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Mexico and more, while Dodgers gamers like Ohtani, Roki Sasaki and Yoshinobu Yamamoto have actually ended up being cultural icons in their homeland of Japan. The Big league Baseball season started with a video game in Japan and ended up in Canada, the very first time it’s ever begun and ended up beyond the U.S.
That sense of international reach– and the music and star culture linked with it– is no mishap. Uzma Rawn Dowler, Chief Marketing Officer of Big League Baseball, states the league has actually been deliberately weaving music into the material of the video game.
” Music is such a staple in baseball,” states Dowler in an interview with Signboard Canada throughout Video game 6 at the Rogers Centre in Toronto. “We have our gamer walk-up tunes, however we have actually likewise discovered that music is an enthusiasm point for our young and varied fans.”
That method likewise reaches producing minutes that feel genuine to each city. “We wish to ensure we pertain to the marketplace,” Dowler states. “Here in Toronto, we had Drake for Video game 1– and he was back for Video game 6[and then 7] In Tokyo, for our opening video game with the Dodgers and the Cubs, we had music acts that related to that market.”
Dowler’s technique– to make baseball feel as musically and culturally appropriate as any other sport– is assessed the field too.
” If you enter among our clubhouses and you listen to the playlist, you’re going to hear every various kind of music,” states EJ Aguado, Vice President of Gamer Engagement and Star Relations at Big League Baseball. “You’re visiting and hear guys from all various strolls of life, a lot of guys from various nations. You’re visiting that too with how various celebs and artists appear here. It’s going to interest a lot of various individuals and I believe that’s simply representative of our video game.”
Inquired about what he listens to to pump him up for video games, previous Toronto Blue Jay and present Los Angeles Dodger Teoscar Hernández informed Signboard Canada he keeps the pace low.
” For me, it’s more unwind time,” he stated. “I listen to a great deal of Christian music. That’s what makes my mind and my head calm so I can be all set for the video game.”
For his part, Blue Jay shortstop-turned-second baseman Bo Bichette stated “I’m a big [Justin] Bieber fan.” He enjoyed seeing the Canadian star vocalist in L.A. supporting the Jays.
Gamers each had their own walkup music, which ran the range from System of a Down’s heavy rock tune “B.Y.O.B” (Addison Barger) to Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” (Davis Schneider). Guerrero tends to utilize tunes by Latin trap and reggaetón artist Eladio Carrión, who appeared at video games in L.A., while Alejandro Kirk utilizes local Mexican tunes by artist Xavi. Paradoxically, the most significant Canadian tune was utilized by a Dodger, with Ohtani approaching Michael Bublé’s variation of “Feeling Great”– something that offered diehard Jays fan Bublé combined sensations.
You might feel the city, and the nation, coming together to join fans of any ages, which was shown in its soundtrack too. The Weeknd collaborated with the Blue Jays for exclusive merch, while Abel Tesfaye told a hype-up video for Rogers Sportsnet. A rerecorded variation of Queen’s “I Desired Everything” with the Toronto Chamber orchestra ended up being the group’s rallying cry.
This season, Scarborough artist Azeem Haq partnered with rap artist Choclair for a brand-new variation of heaven Jays’ traditional seventh inning stretch signature tune “okay Blue Jays.” Throughout the playoffs, the tune was used Sportsnet and trended on Instagram reels as fans utilized the tune to cheer on the group. The tune, which plays off the 1993 World Series-referencing line “like Carter did to Philly” from Choclair’s 1990 CanCon struck “Let’s Trip,” referrals every age of heaven Jays and all of their playoff theatrics.
Haq informs Signboard Canada he was in fact at the ’92 and ’93 World Series where heaven Jays won back-to-back champions, going to the video games with his uncle and daddy, and now he mores than happy to bring the fandom into the brand-new age for his 4 nephews, who all appear on the track. “It’s a generational thing,” he states. “My papa handed the love to me, I’m handing it down to my nephews.”
This time around, political declarations didn’t catch discussion the exact same method as they provided for the NHL’s 4 Nations competition that pitted Canada and the United States versus each other throughout a tense time of global relations previously this year. There was notable backlash to singers changing the lyrics to “O Canada” before World Series video games– JP Saxe singing “home on native land” (initially sung by Jully Black) and Rufus Wainwright obtaining the “that just us command” line initially utilized by Chantal Kreviazuk because earlier hockey competition.
There was likewise fan backlash to a Video game 2 efficiency by Jonas Brothers, who played a tune following a touching Withstand Cancer sector in between innings. Where the halftime efficiency is an essential part of the Super Bowl, MLB video games do not have as natural a mid-game music sector (though for her part, Dowler states the quantity of time in between innings was the exact same as previous homages; they simply went to Jonas Brothers rather of a business).
Still, there was a collective effort to bring star power to the series. In L.A., celebs like Brad Pitt and Sydney Sweeney appeared to the video game, while Toronto established a red carpet-like media event with the Commissioner’s Prize for celebs like P.K. Subban, Jerry O’Connell and Vampire Journals‘ Paul Wesley to posture with. In Toronto, Pharrell Williams opened the series with gospel group Voices of Fire for a fancy variation of the American nationwide anthem.
Even amidst the heartbreak, something moved. Baseball, typically viewed as the slower, quieter sport, unexpectedly felt alive in the nation’s cultural blood stream. In Toronto, it seemed like among the most significant minutes of cumulative pride and energy because the 2019 Toronto Raptors champion– something the city has actually been pleading for because the pandemic.
Video game 7 of the 2025 World Series was supposedly the most watched baseball game since 2017, gathering 5 million more audiences than Video game 7 of this year’s NBA Finals. It seems like baseball is more culturally appropriate than ever, and the nail-biting Blue Jays-Dodgers World Series was a huge part of that.
” I believe we remain in the middle of the crest of the wave today,” Dowler states, discussing the around the world cultural resonance of the sport. “This ought to not be unanticipated for baseball any longer. This is what fans ought to get out of MLB– which’s what we’re truly, truly delighted about.”
” It’s terrific to bring music artists out here and reveal that the most significant stars are at baseball’s most significant phase,” states Aguado, keeping in mind that the star calls they make are to genuine baseball fans, not simply identifiable names. “This is the centre phase of the sports universe today and we have the most significant and brightest on the field and off the field here in one location.”
For 4 video games throughout the World Series, that location was Toronto. It ended with a gutting outcome, however it reignited an enthusiasm for baseball that will outlast 2025– and may even generate a couple of brand-new Blue Jays anthems.
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