Josh Dloomy is flying from North Carolina to Buffalo, where his father will scoop him up for the drive to Toronto to catch the Blue Jays game at Rogers Centre on Saturday night.
Raised in Thornhill, Ont., Dloomy has been dreaming of attending a World Series game with his brother together. His dream finally came true on Tuesday morning, when his cousin snagged four tickets for $500 a piece, even as Dloomy sat hopelessly in the Ticketmaster queue at number 70,000, he says.
Dloomy is just one of thousands of fans from across Canada and beyond who are expected to flock to Toronto as the Blue Jays host the Los Angeles Dodgers this Friday and Saturday for Games 1 and 2 of the World Series. In the past 24 hours, bars across the city have been inundated with weekend bookings, eager fans are lining up outside Blue Jays jersey shops and flights and hotel rooms are becoming scarce.
Luckily for Dloomy, his flight and game tickets are covered by the winnings from his bet on the Blue Jays’ ALCS Game 7 victory on FanDuel, the U.S. fantasy sports and betting platform.
“It’s almost like a bonding thing, of something that we’ve looked forward to our whole lives doing together,” said Dloomy, 36, a family doctor in the U.S. “That’s really why I’m more motivated to fly in to share the experience with (my brother).”
“There’s certain to be a significant economic lift provided by the Blue Jays,” said Andrew Weir, President and CEO of Destination Toronto. “The bars will be filled with people watching, because there’s just something about the communal experience of being with other fans.”
During the series between the Blue Jays and Yankees in early October, Game 1 in Toronto pushed hotel demand up six per cent year-over-year, adding more than 1,200 booked rooms, according to Destination Toronto. Game 2 on Oct. 5 saw an even bigger surge, with hotel demand up 22 per cent and more than 3,500 extra booked rooms.
Weir said that the World Series games are poised to mark a high point for Toronto tourism this year, as people connected to the games flying in for business and fans of both the Toronto and Los Angeles teams coming either to watch in person or simply to be part of the city’s excitement.
Weir noted that the city’s tourism industry went through a sluggish first quarter, weighed down by U.S.-Canada trade tensions, and built momentum through the summer concert season featuring Coldplay, Oasis and Blackpink.
“In the short term, we’re seeing a lot of new spending, with people coming to the city,” he said. “Beyond that, more people see Toronto as an energized, big, exciting city that drives more long-term demand for visitation.”
The West Cork Irish Pub, located in the heart of the Riverside community, has experienced a surge in business since the Blue Jays hosted the Yankees in early October, said 26-year-old pub manager Danielle Carey.
On any day the Blue Jays play, the phones ring non-stop, emails flood in with reservation requests, and the pub’s Instagram inbox fills with messages from fans eager to secure a table, she said.
Carey estimates that sales “doubled, if not tripled” on the night of Game 7, adding that the pub’s owner “couldn’t be happier.”
“The atmosphere here was electric,” Carey said of the moment when Blue Jay George Springer hit a three-run home run in the bottom of the seventh inning to give Toronto the lead over the Seattle Mariners. “Everyone was just up out of their seats, hugging each other. One or two people did shed a tear, but they tried to make it not so obvious.”
On Monday night, the pub was so packed that security was counting heads every hour to ensure the crowd did not exceed the maximum capacity of 156 people, Carey said. She added that this Friday, they’ll accept customers on a first-come, first-served basis.
Numan Abu, an employee at The Sports Collection, a small sportswear store in Toronto, told the Star that Blue Jays fans have been swarming in to buy jerseys on Tuesday. The store recorded 33 transactions in just the first three hours after opening at 11 a.m., more than some full-day sales.
“Our inventory is extremely low for all the jerseys,” Abu said. “The game’s success is really helpful.”
