First episode date 6 April 1999 | Cast Buck Martinez | |
Nominations Canadian Screen Award for Best Sports Play-by-Play Announcer Similar Major League Baseball, Baseball's Seasons, Wednesday Night Baseball, The Baseball Bunch, Hot Stove | ||
Toronto Blue Jays on Sportsnet is a live telecast of Toronto Blue Jays baseball games that air on Sportsnet, Sportsnet One, or Sportsnet 360. Starting in 2003, some games were broadcast in high definition. As of 2007, all games that air on the network are presented in high definition. Sportsnet began showing Blue Jays games in 1999 and is now their official television carrier, carrying all 162 Blue Jays games throughout the regular season.
Contents
Non-Blue Jays games on Sportsnet are also branded as MLB on Sportsnet
History
Sportsnet launched in October 1998 as CTV Sportsnet and began covering Blue Jays games on April 6, 1999. During the early years, Sportsnet would broadcast between 40-60 games. Starting in 2002, Sportsnet began broadcasting more games than TSN (The Sports Network) and took over the majority rights. Rogers Sportsnet broadcast 120 Jays games in 2003 and 2004, 103 in 2005, 122 in 2006 and 2009, 116 in 2007 and all 162 games in 2010. Games also began to air on digital channel Sportsnet One upon its launch in August 2010. Since the Blue Jays and Sportsnet are both wholly owned by Rogers Communications, Sportsnet's rights are of indefinite duration.
Sportsnet is also the main television outlet for Major League Baseball in Canada, holding Canadian rights to Fox's Saturday games, the All-Star Game, and the postseason. Most Sportsnet channels (including Sportsnet One) also carry a variety of non-Blue Jays games of regional interest, including the Boston Red Sox (particularly on the East and Ontario feeds) and the Seattle Mariners (on the Pacific feed), among others. Sportsnet formerly also aired ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball, but sub-licensed the games to TSN in exchange for its previous package of Blue Jays games.
On October 5, 2015, Rogers announced that it would broadcast all Blue Jays home games during the 2016 season in 4K.
Commentators
As of 2010, Blue Jays games are preceded by a pre-game show, Blue Jays Central (formerly Jays Connected), hosted by Jamie Campbell, which starts half an hour before the game.
As of the 2010 season, Blue Jays games are called by Buck Martinez on play-by-play, with Pat Tabler as analyst. In September 2014, Sportsnet extended their contract with the network through 2019.
Due to the structure of Rogers' MLB broadcast contracts, Sportsnet does not use its domestic production for Blue Jays games if the team is in postseason play, and instead airs of a simulcast of the U.S. broadcast (such as Fox in 2015, and TBS in 2016). Rogers executive Scott Moore, however, said that Buck Martinez would participate as a commentator of the MLB International feed of the 2016 World Series (which will be used by Sportsnet in lieu of the Fox production), regardless of whether the Jays advance.