How Blue Jays fans are getting screwed by Apple TV at the most exciting time in close to a decade
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Coast-to-coast, viewers have been captivated by the team's four-game winning streak — including three in a row over the New York Yankees heading into Thursday's series finale — a run that has given them a share of first place in the American League East with the Bronx Bombers.
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There is still an afterglow from Tuesday's brilliant Canada Day show that not only resulted in a resounding 12-5 win over the Yankees, but featured the piece de resistance renaissance of George Springer, who hit two home runs, including a grand slam, and drove in seven.
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So what better way to welcome the first true weekend of summer by tuning in to Friday night's first of three against the Los Angeles Angeles, right? Surely Sportsnet, the home of the majority of Jays broadcasts is reading to feast on one of its highest ratings of the year, right?
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You guess it, Friday is the Jays first intrusion of Apple TV of the second half of the season, a blight that Toronto fans tend to take harder than other markets around the league.
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This will be the Jays third appearance on Apple TV, a semi-regular annoyance for not only the Jays fan base — which blessed with a coast-to-coast audience draws significantly bigger audiences than every team in baseball for its regular telecasts — but for Sportsnet itself.
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Remember Rogers Communications owns both the Jays and the network, a synergy that is an ideal mix for both parties as the baseball team regularly draws more than a million viewers. With the team taking a 48-38 record into Thursday's against the Yankees, they've suddenly renewed the optimism that dominated in the summer of 2015 and 2016 when the team was such a hot commodity.
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It's the second occasion this season that the Apple TV show will roll into town at a terrible time for Sportsnet. The first was just three games into the season and denied the network of its first prime time telecast of the season.
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It's not a stretch to suggest that Friday's contest against the Angels would be one of the most anticipated of the season, given the weekend slot and the events of the last week and more.
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Remember that once we move through July 1, Canada becomes a captivated nation of baseball fans. The Stanley Cup has been awarded, NHL's free agent frenzy season is mostly in the past and it's baseball time.
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