The TD Bank logo appears prominently on Toronto Blue Jays jerseys.Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images
Toronto-Dominion Bank’s TD-T patience is paying off. After two decades and multiple team rebuilds, the lender’s partnership with the Toronto Blue Jays is delivering a return many marketing departments can only dream of.
TD has been a sponsor of the Jays since 2005, and Canadian baseball fans have grown accustomed to seeing the team’s green logo inside the ballpark or at co-branded events, such as a Winter Tour in 2015 when players visited multiple Canadian cities.
Yet TD’s visibility has increased over the past few years, and its logo is now prominently displayed behind home plate during home games. The Jays also have a TD logo on the left sleeve of their jerseys, and when they take on the Dodgers in Game 3 of the World Series Monday night in Los Angeles, viewers will see the bright green patch every time Vladimir Guerrero Jr. steps up to the plate or Ernie Clement makes an in-field play.
The financial value of that exposure is substantial, because TD has a major presence in retail banking in the U.S. – albeit on the Eastern Seaboard, not L.A – and the World Series usually draws in millions more eyeballs than regular season games and earlier rounds of the playoffs.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. at TD Ballpark in Dunedin, Florida on March 13.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
There is also an intangible element of this partnership – a “cool” factor that’s hard to describe. Advertising execs dream of tapping into the cultural zeitgeist, and with the Jays playing against a juggernaut of a team that has a mammoth payroll and is based in a major city, they are in the sweet spot. Playing the Milwaukee Brewers just wouldn’t be the same.
Then there’s the bank rivalry. Royal Bank of Canada sponsored Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in Toronto and Vancouver in late 2024, providing the bank with scores of tickets for clients and employees. TD is now punching back with a playoff run that has Canadians tuning in from coast to coast, and one that has also delivered scores of tickets that can be gifted to clients and employees.
Tickets to the World Series, said TD chief marketing officer Tyrrell Schmidt, are in “very, very high demand,” and chief executive officer Raymond Chun served as host at the last two games of the American League Championship Series, and also for Game 1 of the World Series, when the Jays stunned the Dodgers with a commanding win.
But it has been a journey to get here. TD’s sponsorship started in 2005 and the two organizations have grown closer over two decades. In 2013, TD became the Jays’ exclusive financial-institution sponsor, and in 2019, the bank expanded its partnership with a deal that added the TD Executive Suites to the Rogers Centre.
TD lays off staff, staggers return-to-office dates for some workers
TD names new heads for fixed income and equities after leadership shakeup
The 2019 renewal was a particularly challenging one, because it was a rough period for the Jays. The team made two playoff runs in 2015 and 2016 – the era of José Bautista’s famous bat flip – but did not manage a World Series berth. Eventually, the Jays decided to rebuild, and TD stuck around, but a year later the COVID-19 pandemic erupted and the Jays didn’t return to their home stadium until late in the 2021 season.
“Having a long-term view of sponsorship is something we really value,” Ms. Schmidt said.
Since coming back, the Jays have invested $400-million in Rogers Centre renovations, turning the stadium into something Ms. Schmidt describes as an “entertainment centre” – and one that now displays the TD logo beside premium TD Lounge seats behind home plate.
With the bank already heavily committed to the Jays, TD stepped up again in 2023, the first year that Major League Baseball allowed teams to have logo patches on their uniform sleeves. MLB had resisted for years, but commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters then that it’s a “revenue source that is significant enough that it is really impossible for the sport to ignore.”
Three home run leadership lessons from what the Blue Jays are doing right
For TD, the patch is quite noticeable to TV viewers. “Some of it is the simplicity,” Ms. Schmidt explains. “The green stands out.” And the marketing potential in the World Series is huge. Last year, Nielsen Sports calculated that the top two most valuable sports team sponsorships were the Yankees and Dodgers jersey patches during the 2024 World Series.
But 2024 was a tough season for the Jays, and the star-studded team failed to even make the playoffs. For a second, it seemed like another team rebuild could be coming.
The Jays rallied this year, though, finishing first in the American League and were then propelled into the World Series by a home run in Game 7 by George Springer, who has his own sponsorship deal with TD.
“Seeing George Springer with that jersey patch, with his green shoes on,” Ms. Schmidt said, “we couldn’t have been more thrilled.”