Apple TV messes with Sportsnet's season opening Blue Jays coverage

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DUNEDIN, Fla. — It has been one of the ongoing stories of the Blue Jays off-season — the need for a team coming off a last-place 2024 campaign to get off to a quick start.

Maybe starting at home for the first time in three seasons will help in that regard, but the passionate TV audience of the team keen to see a bounce-back effort are getting thrown a curve ball for the opening series of the season.

Apple TV’s Friday Night Baseball initiative, already viewed as an inconvenience for Jays fans who don’t subscribe to the streaming service, will have a prominent role in the team’s opening-weekend series against the Baltimore Orioles.

The Friday contest, a night after the opening-day extravaganza at the Rogers Centre where the Jays begin their season for the first time in three years, will be the first of a number of appearances on Apple for Toronto, a necessary evil considering it’s a lucrative league initiative.

But that doesn’t mean the Jays organization — and especially its broadcaster, Rogers Sportsnet — is pleased with the development. Quite the contrary, we’re told.

The opening series, especially with a Friday prime-time first pitch, would’ve been a welcome opportunity for a huge ratings score for Sportsnet as it launches its full season schedule. After a long spring training and such a miserable 2024, the story lines are aplenty affording Sportsnet’s deep roster of analysts the opportunity to set up the season with in-depth previews and content.

With weekend games on Saturday and Sunday to wrap up the opening series against the O’s, both with afternoon first pitches, Sportsnet won’t get its first prime-time telecast until Monday’s date against the Washington Nationals — not exactly a big draw — for the first of a three-game series to wrap up the opening homestand.

Piling on to that development, the finale of the Nats series is also a matinee, as is the Jays’ first road contest, a Friday April 4 date in New York that is the Mets’ season opener. As a result, only two of the Jays’ first nine contests will be prime-time affairs.

While recognizing that they have no choice in the matter, Sportsnet officials are less than pleased about the development given the possibility of a solid ratings bump associated with the start of any season. That opening Friday telecast had the potential to be ratings gold. It’s also an annoyance for fans looking forward to the insight of the team’s knowledgeable game-calling tandem of Buck Martinez and Dan Shulman.

It’s less than ideal for the Jays as well considering the telecasts from their corporate broadcast partner also afford the opportunity to help with on-air pitches to sell tickets. Early indications show the potential for some lean crowds in the first month of the season or longer, especially if the team doesn’t get off to a solid start.
The opening Apple telecast involving the Jays is part of a doubleheader that also includes the New York Mets facing the Houston Astros.

The Jays won’t have to wait long to make a second Apple TV appearance with an April 18 Rogers Centre date against the Seattle Mariners also on the docket. The streaming service, which certainly benefits from fans scrambling to subscribe to not miss out on the action, has announced its schedule for only the first half of the season.