Marketing Case Study: Blue Jays

The Blue Jays have a unique market which they operate in. Why, because as stated before the Blue Jays are a Canadian baseball team who are members of the MLB. According to the MLB criteria, all of Canada is the Blue Jays territory. Which means they have the highest fan base in MLB history. Here we will look at how the value of the television contract and how it might impact their roster. Also we will discuss the ticket prices, attendance levels and demographics of the Blue Jays. Today, the sale of broadcasting and media rights is the biggest source of revenue for most sport organizations. These funds are used to finance the games, renovate the stadium, and improve the team’s roster. As for the Blue Jays their broadcasting revenue has fallen

In the late 1908s and early 1990s, the Blue Jays was one of the highest paying team in baseball. But, in 2012 they ranked bottom third. Ranking second to last behind the Washington Nationals of all 30 baseball teams. General manager Alex Anthopoulos compared the Jays attendance level to the team’s payroll. This brings the idea that if you want the attendance to improve the team will have to increase the amount of money they spend on players. If they don’t increase the amount of money they spend on attendance the team won’t draw crowds. However, today teams are using their broadcasting revenue to spend more money on improving their roaster. Now in 2017, their rank stands at 15 one rank below from last year. In 2017 they spent $164 million on payroll and in 2016 they spent $148. As you can see they did spend more this year than last year but still dropped in the ranks. This is because last year the Jays spent more money than the Royals, but the Royals spent more money then the Jay this year. Over the last two years we have had an increase in the amount of money they spend on good

So as you can see there is an $8 difference between the Blue Jays and the Tampa Bay Rays. Which we can conclude there isn’t really a big difference between the two prices, but when comparing to the Yankees there is a $43 difference. Here we can definitely say that the Yankees charge a lot more than the Jays do. Let’s take a look at the attendance levels of all three teams and compare them. Looking at the 2017 attendance record on ESPN, the Blue Jays were ranked number 5 having 1,190,659 people attending their games. The NY Yankees ranked number 6 with 1,064,502 and the Tampa Bay Rays ranked number 30 with 472,877. Well why did the Blue Jays have more attendees then the Yankees did even though the Yankees are leading the American League and the Blue Jays are in last place. Well in my opinion I believe it is because of the ticket prices. People aren’t willing to pay that much for to watch a game when they can watch it at home for free. With the Blue Jays their ticket prices match people’s willingness to go watch the game live. When looking at the demographics in Toronto their fans aren’t constrained by the ballpark or even