Only Four MLB Teams Do Not Start Any Weeknight Games Before 7 PM. The Blue Jays Are One of Them.
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The Rogers Centre is the only Major League ballpark with a hotel inside.
That does not mean Toronto fans are getting to bed early.
The Blue Jays are one of just four MLB clubs with no weeknight start times before 7 p.m., which many fans view as a more family-friendly option, enabling parents to bring younger children to games, particularly during the school year.
Mike Mazzeo of Sports Business Journal recently wrote an article detailing the trend across Major League Baseball of teams starting weeknight games before 7 p.m..
In 2021, 42% of weeknight games started before 7 p.m. local time. For 2025, it was up to 63%.
Through May 27th, Sports Business Journal reported that 76% of weeknight games began before 7 p.m. (weeknight games are defined as Monday-Friday games starting after 6 p.m. local time). This number is expected to decline during the summer because many teams start their games earlier during the school year.
The trend, however, has not made its way to Canada. Toronto is joined by the Yankees, Mets, and Braves as the only teams with no weeknight games scheduled before 7 p.m. (Note: tonight's originally scheduled 7:07 p.m. start time has been moved to 4:07 p.m. due to the World Cup game in Toronto).
The Blue Jays declined to comment on why they do not start any home games before their standard 7:07 p.m. weeknight start time.
From clubs that have shared the rationale for their decisions, it is a multi-faceted decision. Fans weigh getting home earlier after the game versus battling weeknight traffic to get to games on time. Clubs weigh television ratings, ticket sales, concession sales, fan input, operational logistics, and the cultivation of the next generation of fans.
Local market weather, traffic, ballpark location, and fan demographics all play a factor in the club's decisions.
Fan Feedback Has Been Very Positive on Earlier Start Times
Fan feedback for the teams that have switched more of their games to earlier start times, typically 6:40 p.m. or 6:45 p.m., though some as early as 6:10 p.m., has been extremely positive.
“When we moved our start time to 6:40 p.m., I’ve never had more positive feedback on anything from our season-ticket holders,” John Weber, the Phillies’ senior vice president of ticket operations and a 25-year club executive, told Sports Business Journal. “I couldn’t imagine playing a game at 7:05 right now.”
His comments were echoed by several other clubs in the BSJ article.
The 2023 introduction of the pitch clock also shaved 24 minutes off game times, going from an average of 3:04 in 2022 to 2:40 in 2023 (and has largely stayed around that since 2023).
With a 6:40 start time and a 2:40 game, a family will, on average, be able to leave the ballpark around 9:20 p.m. without having to choose between seeing the end of a close game and having cranky kids the next day.
The change to earlier start times and the shorter games has helped MLB attendance grow. In 2024, 88% of games finished before 10 PM, nearly double the 45% in 2021, and 59% of games finished before 9:30 versus just 24% prior to the earlier start times and the introduction of the pitch clock.
Without input from the team, we are left to speculate as to why Toronto has not embraced this broader trend. But there are factors that make the Blue Jays unique and may influence the decision.
The Blue Jays Dilemma
The other three holdouts, both New York teams and Atlanta, have terrible rush hour traffic and ballparks far from the downtown office buildings of Manhattan and downtown Atlanta.
Toronto is the only one of the four holdouts with its ballpark right downtown which would seemingly make it easier for fans to get from downtown offices to Rogers Centre in time for earlier starts.
Fans coming from outside downtown may still encounter traffic snarls, but at that hour, it is a reverse commute.
The Blue Jays, though, are not just Toronto's team; they are Canada's team. And that difference may well factor into the Blue Jays thinking, particularly as it relates to television.
Unlike the 29 American clubs, which are regional broadcast properties, Blue Jays games are televised nationally on Sportsnet, which, like the Blue Jays, is owned by Rogers Communications.
A 6:40 p.m. start time in Toronto is a 3:40 p.m. start time in Vancouver, meaning that by the time Canadians in the Pacific time zone get home from work, the game will be over.
A 4:40 p.m. start time is slightly better for Albertans in Calgary and Edmonton, but they will still miss much of the game by the time they are home from work.
There are no easy answers, only tradeoffs.
And if George Springer hits a home run against his former team to send Wednesday night's game to extra innings, for a mere $724 CAD/~$511 USD, you can still get a room with two double beds at the Toronto Marriott City Center Hotel, the only hotel in North America built inside a baseball stadium.
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Adam Steinmetz writes about the Toronto Blue Jays for SI.com. Adam is also the editor and publisher of the Boston Sunday Sports Section, a weekly digital publication covering the Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics, and Bruins. A two-time winner of the Best Collegiate Sports Writer award in Philadelphia, he began his career with freelance work for The Philadelphia Daily News and The Palm Beach Post before building a successful career outside of journalism. He returned to sports writing last year, contributing to Pitcher List—including coverage of the Toronto Blue Jays—before launching Authorenticity on Substack, where he explores the human stories within baseball. The Boston Sunday Sports Section is his most ambitious project — the thinking fan’s modern Sunday Sports Section focused on the Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics, and Bruins.