<\/p>\n
\n\tIf Canadian music sounds a little bit sadder over the next year, there\u2019s a good reason: Across the country, fans are grappling with the heartbreak of a painful World Series<\/a> loss. In Toronto, where fans of all stripes tuned in, the city is feeling the weight.<\/p>\n \n\tFor one glorious week, the city became the epicenter of not just sports<\/a>, but culture. As the Toronto Blue Jays played the Los Angeles Dodgers for baseball<\/a>\u2018s biggest prize, the game emanated not just from the Rogers Centre, but homes, bars and even music venues.<\/p>\n \n\tIt wasn\u2019t just that Toronto was watching baseball. Baseball became part of the city\u2019s cultural rhythm, blurring the lines between the game and the music that soundtracks it. In that moment, baseball became a mirror for Canadian culture \u2014 uniting generations, artists and genres around a team that felt bigger than the city it played for.<\/p>\n \n\tFor bands who had shows on the night of the pivotal Game 7 on Saturday night (Nov. 1), they got creative \u2014 watching the game on an iPad onstage, as the Beaches did, or projecting it right behind them, like Born Ruffians.<\/p>\n \n\tAt the Rogers Centre, artists became part of the texture of the game. Baseball collector and superfan\u00a0Geddy Lee of Rush<\/a>\u00a0was a regular sight as he remained glued to his seat throughout the series, Arkells frontman Max Kerman joined a busker to sing Tragically Hip songs for patriotic fans,\u00a0Justin Bieber<\/a> brought his wife Hailey to catch the game from Los Angeles, decked out in a Bieber Blue Jays jersey (for pitcher Shane Bieber, not Justin).<\/p>\n \n\tEven Drake<\/a>, who is famously associated with the Toronto Raptors, jumped from his typical courtside spot at the Scotiabank Arena to a private box at Rogers Centre to watch Games 1, 6 and 7 of the World Series. At\u00a0the OVO-presented Vybz Kartel concert in Toronto<\/a>, the Jamaican dancehall star donned a custom Blue Jays jersey.<\/p>\n \n\tWhere countless rappers drop bars about Steph Curry, Kobe Bryant or Allen Iverson, baseball\u2019s cultural currency often feels as timeless as the game itself. Songs associated with baseball tend to date back four decades, if not 10, and reference players from a century ago: more Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio than Shohei Ohtani and Vladimir Guerrero Jr..<\/p>\n \n\tThat might change now. From\u00a0Vladdy\u2019s \u201cborn ready\u201d swagger<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0Ernie Clement\u2019s power of friendship<\/a>, the 2025 Blue Jays were full of lovable characters and storylines to latch onto. The demographics of baseball are also changing.<\/p>\n \n\tWhile basketball touts the game going global<\/a>, baseball has been there and continues to spread far and wide across the world. This series had impact players from Canada<\/a>, the United States, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Mexico and more, while Dodgers players like Ohtani, Roki Sasaki and Yoshinobu Yamamoto have become cultural icons in their homeland of Japan. The Major League Baseball season began with a game in Japan and finished in Canada, the first time it\u2019s ever started and finished outside of the U.S.<\/p>\n \n\tThat sense of global reach \u2014 and the music and celebrity culture intertwined with it \u2014 is no accident. Uzma Rawn Dowler, Chief Marketing Officer of Major League Baseball, says the league has been intentionally weaving music into the fabric of the game.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cMusic is such a staple in baseball,\u201d says Dowler in an interview with\u00a0Billboard Canada<\/a>\u00a0during Game 6 at the Rogers Centre in Toronto. \u201cWe have our player walk-up songs, but we\u2019ve also found that music is a passion point for our young and diverse fans.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThat approach also extends to creating moments that feel authentic to each city. \u201cWe want to make sure we\u2019re relevant to the market,\u201d Dowler says. \u201cHere in Toronto, we had Drake for Game 1 \u2014 and he was back for Game 6 [and then 7]. In Tokyo, for our opening game with the Dodgers and the Cubs, we had music acts that were relevant to\u00a0that\u00a0market.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tDowler\u2019s strategy \u2014 to make baseball feel as musically and culturally relevant as any other sport \u2014 is reflected on the field too.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIf you go in one of our clubhouses and you listen to the playlist, you\u2019re going to hear every different type of music,\u201d says EJ Aguado, Vice President of Player Engagement and Celebrity Relations at Major League Baseball. \u201cYou\u2019re going to see and hear guys from all different walks of life, so many guys from different countries. You\u2019re going to see that too with how different celebrities and artists show up here. It\u2019s going to appeal to a bunch of different people and I think that\u2019s just representative of our game.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAsked about what he listens to to pump him up for games, former Toronto Blue Jay and current Los Angeles Dodger Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez told\u00a0Billboard Canada\u00a0he keeps the tempo low.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cFor me, it\u2019s more relax time,\u201d he said. \u201cI listen to a lot of Christian music. That\u2019s what makes my mind and my head calm so I can be ready for the game.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tFor his part, Blue Jay shortstop-turned-second baseman Bo Bichette said \u201cI\u2019m a huge [Justin] Bieber fan.\u201d He loved seeing the Canadian star singer in L.A. supporting the Jays.<\/p>\n \n\tPlayers each had their own walkup music, which ran the gamut from System of a Down\u2019s heavy rock song \u201cB.Y.O.B\u201d (Addison Barger) to Chappell Roan\u2019s \u201cPink Pony Club\u201d (Davis Schneider). Guerrero tends to use songs by Latin trap and reggaeton artist Eladio Carri\u00f3n, who appeared at games in L.A., while Alejandro Kirk uses regional Mexican songs by artist Xavi. Ironically, the biggest Canadian tunewasis used by a Dodger, with Ohtani walking up to Michael Bubl\u00e9\u2019s version of \u201cFeeling Good\u201d \u2014 something that gave diehard Jays fan Bubl\u00e9 mixed feelings.<\/p>\n \n\tYou could feel the city, and the country, coming together to unite fans of all ages, and that was reflected in its soundtrack too. The Weeknd\u00a0collaborated with the Blue Jays for exclusive merch<\/a>, while Abel Tesfaye narrated a hype-up video for Rogers Sportsnet. A rerecorded version of Queen\u2019s \u201cI Want It All\u201d with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra became the team\u2019s rallying cry.<\/p>\n \n\tThis season, Scarborough artist Azeem Haq teamed up with rapper Choclair for a new version of the Blue Jays\u2019 classic seventh inning stretch theme song \u201cOK Blue Jays.\u201d During the playoffs, the song was played on Sportsnet and trended on Instagram reels as fans used the song to cheer on the team. The song, which plays off the 1993 World Series-referencing line \u201clike Carter did to Philly\u201d from Choclair\u2019s 1990 CanCon hit \u201cLet\u2019s Ride,\u201d references every era of the Blue Jays and all of their playoff theatrics.<\/p>\n \n\tHaq tells\u00a0Billboard Canada\u00a0he was actually at the \u201992 and \u201993 World Series where the Blue Jays won back-to-back championships, attending the games with his uncle and father, and now he\u2019s happy to bring the fandom into the new era for his four nephews, who all appear on the track. \u201cIt\u2019s a generational thing,\u201d he says. \u201cMy dad handed the love down to me, I\u2019m handing it down to my nephews.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThis time around, political statements didn\u2019t capture conversation the same way as they did for the NHL\u2019s Four Nations tournament that pitted Canada and the United States against each other during a tense time of international relations earlier this year. There was\u00a0notable backlash to singers changing the lyrics to \u201cO Canada\u201d<\/a>\u00a0before World Series games \u2014 JP Saxe singing \u201chome\u00a0on\u00a0native land\u201d (first sung by Jully Black) and Rufus Wainwright borrowing the \u201cthat only us command\u201d line\u00a0first used by Chantal Kreviazuk in that earlier hockey tournament<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tThere was also\u00a0fan backlash<\/a>\u00a0to a Game 2 performance by Jonas Brothers, who played a song following a touching Stand Up To Cancer segment between innings. Where the halftime performance is an integral part of the Super Bowl, MLB<\/a> games don\u2019t have as natural a mid-game music segment (though for her part, Dowler says the amount of time between innings was the same as previous tributes; they just went to Jonas Brothers instead of a commercial).<\/p>\n \n\tStill, there was a concerted effort to bring star power to the series. In L.A., celebrities like Brad Pitt and Sydney Sweeney showed up to the game, while Toronto set up a red carpet-like photo op with the Commissioner\u2019s Trophy for celebrities like P.K. Subban, Jerry O\u2019Connell and\u00a0Vampire Diaries\u2018 Paul Wesley to pose with. In Toronto, Pharrell Williams opened the series with gospel group Voices of Fire for a flashy version of the American national anthem.<\/p>\n \n\tEven amid the heartbreak, something shifted. Baseball, often seen as the slower, quieter sport, suddenly felt alive in the country\u2019s cultural bloodstream. In Toronto, it felt like one of the biggest moments of collective pride and energy since the 2019 Toronto Raptors championship \u2014 something the city has been begging for since the pandemic.<\/p>\n \n\tGame 7 of the 2025 World Series was reportedly\u00a0the most watched baseball game since 2017<\/a>, garnering 5 million more viewers than Game 7 of this year\u2019s NBA Finals. It feels like baseball is more culturally relevant than ever, and the nail-biting Blue Jays-Dodgers World Series was a major part of that.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI think we\u2019re in the middle of the crest of the wave right now,\u201d Dowler says, speaking about the worldwide cultural resonance of the sport. \u201cThis should not be unexpected for baseball anymore. This is what fans should expect from MLB \u2014 and that\u2019s what we\u2019re really, really excited about.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIt\u2019s great to bring music artists out here and show that the biggest stars are at baseball\u2019s biggest stage,\u201d says Aguado, noting that the celebrity calls they make are to real baseball fans, not just recognizable names. \u201cThis is the centre stage of the sports universe right now and we have the biggest and brightest on the field and off the field here in one place.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tFor four games during the World Series, that place was Toronto. It ended with a gutting result, but it reignited a passion for baseball that will outlive 2025 \u2014 and might even spawn a few new Blue Jays anthems.<\/p>\n \n\tThis article was originally published by Billboard Canada.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n