Batter up: Does baseball make sense in Vancouver and the west coast?
by McKenzie Dalgleish
With renewed discussion around bringing Major League Baseball to Vancouver, the question isn’t just whether it’s possible—but whether the market is ready for it.
Following the recent announcement by Vancouver Mayor Ken Sims on exploring the opportunity to bring a Major League Baseball franchise to Vancouver and British Columbia, it begs the question of does the city and province even care enough about baseball to support a franchise?
The answer to that question based on SponsorPulse’s exclusive sports fandom database is a resounding yes.
When it comes to fan engagement in the British Columbia market, over two-in-five of the general population engages with MLB as a league already, which is on par with other sports leagues in the market, outside of the NHL which is the only league that is part of the Big Four (MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL) in the province.
The data shows that there is already a strong appetite in the market for baseball in general, even though no local MLB team currently calls Vancouver home.
As well, looking at engagement growth since 2021 in British Columbia, MLB saw the most growth compared to the other Big Four Leagues, seeing a 22% increase in engagement the last five years.
In general, sports fandom has grown 16% in the province over the last five years, going from 68% of the general population identifying as sports fans, to 79%. However, MLB has seen a greater share of that growth than other sports leagues, growing 1.3X more during the same period compared to the general population.
Looking at specific sports teams in the market, the Blue Jays are the second most engaged with franchise in British Columbia, ahead of the local BC Lions and Vancouver Whitecaps.
The biggest standout point in the market though is the growing interest of the Toronto Blue Jays in British Columbia, as fan engagement has grown exponentially in the last five years. The data shows that British Columbians are becoming more engaged in big league baseball, to where nearly 50% of the general population engages with the Blue Jays.
Even though the team resides thousands of kilometres away, the Vancouver market is highly tuned into baseball, establishing itself as the second most engaged with team and growing at a far greater rate than the Toronto Raptors, who are also the lone Canadian team in their league, the NBA.
The data is clear that sports fans in British Columbia are highly receptive and engaged with baseball and from a support perspective the appetite for a potential MLB team is strong
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