Why Blue Jays fans might not overtake Seattle for ALCS games vs. Mariners

Tim Booth, The Seattle Times on Oct 14, 2025

Published in Baseball

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SEATTLE — The Canadians are coming.

Welcome. Good to see you, even if there may not be as many coming to town as in the past.

The next three days at T-Mobile Park could end up looking a little bit like years of the past when a flock of Blue Jays would make the trip south from Western Canada with the hopes of seeing the team of the country play in Seattle.

Toronto fans will be there for Games 3, 4 and if necessary 5 of the American League Championship Series. But don’t expect the stadium takeover that’s been seen in the past even if this time, the stakes are far higher.

“Obviously, the Mariners came out hot in the first two games and look great, so you’re seeing a strong Mariner crowd and maybe a deflated Blue Jays crowd. That’s kind of what we’re seeing right now,” said Anthony Beyrouti, founder of ticket reseller VenueKings.com, which is based in Vancouver B.C.

Previous years have seen Blue Jays fans take over T-Mobile Park with sometimes deafening chants of “Let’s Go Blue Jays!”

But there are multiple reasons why there might not be a significant influx of fans from British Columbia and Alberta — or even those from the Toronto area — making the trip to Seattle.

For starters, there aren’t many tickets available. All the tickets made available by the Mariners through various sales over the past few weeks have sold out. The only tickets available as of Tuesday via the Mariners are standing-room only tickets going for $280, before taxes.

The Mariners have not geo fenced any of their ticket sales this year, meaning fans from Canada have just as much opportunity to buy tickets as those in Seattle, Portland or anywhere else in the United States.

In a statement, the M’s said the ticketing process prioritized making sure season ticket members had first shot at getting tickets before individual tickets went on sale and “all were welcome to purchase including our many fans in B.C.”

The rest of the tickets available are on the resale market with price tags starting in the low $300 range and rising from there, as of Tuesday afternoon. Beyrouti said tickets on VenueKings.com for Game 3 were starting around $300, Game 4 was at $350 and Game 5, if it’s needed, are starting around $430 as of Tuesday.

He said about 17% of sales for the series have come from the Vancouver area.

“People have been very excited to go to the games. The velocity is pretty high so there’s a lot of transactions. People are choosing to turn it into a family event,” Beyrouti said.

There’s also the underlying relations between the United States and Canada which seemed lead to a drop in the number of Jays fans coming to Seattle when Toronto made its regularly scheduled appearance at T-Mobile Park back in May.

And the games are being played during the week, rather than on a weekend. As much as fans might want to travel down, there might not be the ability for midweek games.

“It was definitely lighter than usual. People definitely backed off a little bit. It was more of a fun thing and some people take the border situation pretty seriously,” Beyrouti said of the games back in May. “But I think a lot of people are putting that int the rearview mirror for a playoff game.”

He estimated if the series gets to a Game 5 on Friday, don’t be surprised if a lot of Blue Jays blue start infiltrating the seats.

“You’ll probably see quite a bit of an uptick,” he said.

Beyrouti guessed the fan split between the Blue Jays and Mariners in the Vancouver area is around 60/40 in favor of the Jays. The Blue Jays have nationwide broadcasts of their games, in a similar way to the Atlanta Braves when they had national broadcasts on what’s now TBS beginning in 1977.

Whatever the case, there should be more Blue Jays fans in Seattle than Mariners fans who were in Toronto for the first two games.

“I think that fans in British Columbia, I hope, are Blue Jay fans before they’re Seattle fans,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. “I think we feel that. I think we feel that when we do travel there, too. So I guess my message is try to get some tickets and meet us out there.”

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