CANADA, CORNDOGS AND COMMERCIALISING CRICKETS COUSIN

CANADA, CORNDOGS AND COMMERCIALISING CRICKETS COUSIN

By Vinay Patel

Over the summer, one of our writers had the opportunity to watch a Major League Baseball game in Toronto, Canada. Impact’s Vinay Patel discusses his experience and compares sports games in the UK and the increasing commercialisation of American sports.

During my trip to Canada over the summer, I got the chance to watch a Major League Baseball game between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Oakland Athletics at the Rogers Centre in Downtown Toronto. You can imagine my scepticism as an avid cricket fan as to whether it would surpass its older, more distinguished cousin sport both in terms of quality and overall enjoyment.

To say that I was a baseball novice would be a severe understatement, given that I had no idea who the Blue Jays were until I was offered to go and watch them play in the few days prior - my only connection to the Oakland As was through an all-time classic sports film ‘Moneyball’. However, I was more than determined to remain open minded about a new sport and what was likely to be a once in a lifetime experience for a Brit across the pond.

I was forced to adopt the mindset quickly, as the blue shirts were starting to filter into the local, double-decker (!) train that was headed Downtown.

Where the average group of travelling fans in Britain would feature the built-in package of unique chanting, singing and more often than not, drinking, those in Canada replaced such tendencies with… civilised conversation?

Make no mistake, I think the creativity of the Barmy Army, and more recently the viral West Ham fan-made chant about their own Lucas Paqueta, in the rendition of 90s classic ‘Push The Feeling On’, is what adds to the beautiful sporting culture of our nation. The warm Saturday afternoon sensation was not enough to distract me that fan culture was different here, not bad, just different.

The walk to the Rogers Centre from the train station coincided with the pre-match buildup and growing anticipation for one man, which was, as fate would have it, cricket star Chris Gayle! Famed for his swashbuckling big-hitting in white-ball cricket, Gayle is the most capped player for the West Indies in international cricket and their leading run-scorer in both T20 and ODIs. The ‘Universe Boss’ was set to throw the first pitch and kickstart the game for the Blue Jays.

In fact, the entire theme of the second of a three-game series was centred around cricket, with the Blue Jays giving away limited cricket-themed baseball jerseys around Rogers Centre. I was not lucky enough to grab one for myself. I was, however, able to make up a minuscule fraction of the 41,720 people that were in attendance, dwarfing 2022’s average attendance of 32,763 for Blue Jays’ home games. Chris Gayle walked out to scattered applause and threw the first pitch.

As the teams lined up, patriotic sentiment was rife, as the national anthems of both Canada and the USA warranted live performances, a stark contrast to the spine-tingling renditions of Liverpool’s ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ or the short and sweet ‘Glory, Glory, Man United’ boasted by some of England’s largest sporting fanbases. The start of the game gave way to some lone chants of ‘Let’s go Blue Jays’ but it became obvious that those attending were there to enjoy the event, rather than to verbally get behind their team, as demonstrated in countless sporting events in the UK. At times, it was easy to feel like you were disconnected from the action despite being inside the stadium. The sense of community and togetherness was replaced by the heavy commercialisation that is ever-present in most US sports, not just baseball.

Between each delivery, it felt like you were surrounded by some form of advertisement, be it on the statistics screen, around the stadium, or plainly echoing around you as the stadium announcer ensured he made his quota of sponsor announcements. It is evident that baseball, in particular, has received a steady influx of commercialisation over the past few decades, going from advertisements between each of the nine innings to almost every few minutes. Granted, a baseball game lasts for roughly three hours, sometimes longer, and so holding one’s attention is not only unfair but near impossible for the average person.

The closest comparison would be a T20 game of cricket, a format that arguably had a detrimental effect on the sport but still does not compare to the swarm of ads that currently exists within baseball. Bear in mind that the contentious amalgamation of All-Star games that the MLB, NFL and NBA all partake in, has not been mentioned up until this point, let alone how quickly such a notion would be rejected by British sports fans.

It can be argued that the commercialisation of American sports has also led to a filtered method of fan support, as opposed to the spontaneity and long-standing traditions associated with British fan culture. The familiar, yet catchy ‘Take Me Out to The Ball Game’, echoed throughout the stadium speakers every so often, but would simmer down awfully quickly for a home crowd supposedly supporting their side. At times, it really felt like the crowd required rather large prompts to get behind their team. .

One highly spirited gentleman who sat a few rows in front of me attempted to start a Mexican wave that was to make its way around Rogers Centre. Each attempt was more painful than the last, to which, at his fifth and final attempt, the wave merely travelled a quarter of the stadium. The disconnect from the franchise and its fans was evident and it only pointed to one factor.

The introduction of commercialisation in sports will always be a controversial topic, given that it can be seen as partly responsible for its rapid growth in popularity over the decades. However, the longer it continues to expand in American sports in particular, the faster its humble roots will sever in sports such as baseball. As it so happens, to my dismay, the game only became interesting toward the end, during the eighth and ninth inning, to which the Blue Jays emerged victorious. While the overall experience wasn’t bad, I must stress that it felt much more like a choreographed event, rather than what it should have actually been, a baseball game. So for now I think I will wave a swift farewell to American sports and stick to those on the other side of the pond.