Smallest Blue Jays crowds in years at Rogers Centre to watch AL East-leading Toronto

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The Blue Jays finished off a seven-game home stand and headed into a Thursday off-day with a 5-2 record that jumped them to an early season perch of first place in the American League East.

It was an impressive run on several levels and an ideal tone-setter for a tough opening month in a critical season for the franchise.

But they got off to that quick start to the 2025 season in front of a fan base that could best be described as being in a wait-and-see mode in terms of buying tickets and showing up at the downtown dome.

A Wednesday matinee win over the Washington Nationals at the Rogers Centre drew an announced attendance of just 20,104 — a crowd that was likely much smaller given the official total is paid attendance.

Two games earlier, for the opener of the three-game set against the Nationals, the number was 20,137.

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Those two contests represented the lowest-recorded attendance for a Jays game at the Rogers Centre since the 20,468 tally on April 27, 2022, back when Charlie Montoyo was the manager.

After an almost three-year run of being one of the top-drawing teams in the American League, it seems a fan base burnt by the last-place finish a year ago will have to be won back.

That 5-2 record — the Jays’ best through seven games since 2011 — is a nice start, but will it be enough to woo back the ticket-buying public?

There were several factors at play for the noticeable early dip in attendance, which was easily predictable based on pre-season ticket sales.

Games always are a tougher sell in April, especially midweek dates. As well, the Washington Nationals are hardly a huge draw, especially on a Wednesday afternoon.

But for the “this happens every April crowd” who wants to dismiss the smallish crowds the Jays have seen to date, that isn’t entirely true when compared to early months the past two seasons.

Having two of the smallest crowds in almost three years is certainly an eye-opener for the franchise and a reflection of the urgency to get off to a quick start. A three-game sweep of the Nats and a four-game split against the Orioles certainly accomplishes that.

But when you consider that last year’s lowest paid attendance was the 22,254 on hand for a Sept. 23 date in which the Jays were well on their way to that unsightly last-place finish, the dip is noticeable.

The Wednesday crowd — which certainly looked to be well below 20,000 fans — certainly wasn’t helped by the fact any last-minute walkup component would have been squelched by the ridiculous snow squalls that descended on the city in early afternoon.

The implication is clear, though: Fans have not bought tickets for the 2025 season the way they have in the recent past, a fact acknowledged by Jays CEO Mark Shapiro in a recent interview.

Shapiro noted that “it’s always a challenge to market against April,” a reality most teams across MLB fight. There also are performance factors at play tied directly to the 74-win 2024 season.

“Ultimately some of (ticket sales) is going to be team-performance driven,” Shapiro told the Sun. “Some of that’s going to be us continuing to deliver on superior (fan) experience. (But) there’s always a huge dependence on results.”

The Jays had a crowd of 40,734 greet the club on opening day last week — a sellout, just as the home opener was in 2024. In the six following games, however, five were lower than the corresponding dates on the schedule a year ago.

It’s important to note that everything is an incredibly small sample size at this point. As a National League team not loaded with superstars like the Nationals, for example, would not be considered a huge draw in Toronto in any month, let alone April.

Having said that, the 5-2 start was an important one for the Jays on and off the field. It certainly helped wipe away some of the bitter memories of 2024 and also piled up some momentum to take on a nine-games-in-nine-days trip through New York (vs. The Mets), Boston and Baltimore.

In finishing off the underwhelming Nationals, the Jays showed a killer instinct not often evident last season, taking care of business against a team that should be viewed as an inferior opponent.

“I think there’s a certain mindset that you’ve got to bring into a day game early in April when you’ve won the first two of a series,” manager John Schneider said prior to Wednesday’s win, the Jays’ fourth in a row. “I think really good teams, they kind of seize those opportunities and try to just keep the foot on the gas.”

The fact that the Jays have compiled a record three games above .500 — a place they were for merely a couple of days all last season — is even more impressive given Vlad Guerrero Jr. and Anthony Santander have yet to be dynamic contributors to the offence.

“In a perfect world, we’re doing what we’re doing with Tony and Vlad swinging,” Schneider said. “But I think it’s a matter of time with those two, obviously, and we just have to maintain what we’re doing.”

If that happens, it will just be a matter of time before a fan base that hasn’t exactly abandoned the team returns in full force.