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Rogers Centre - Buy Toronto Blue Jays tickets for Rogers Centre at TickCo.com!

Rogers Centre / Toronto Blue Jays

 

Year Opened	1989
Capacity	50,516
Architect	Rod Robbie and Michael Allen
Dimensions	328L, 375LC, 400C, 375RC, 328R
Playing Surface	FieldTurf
Last Visit	2005
Web Site	http://www.mlb.com
Online Broadcasts	Yes
Online Ticket Sales	Yes
Phone	416/341-1234 or 1-888/OK-GO-JAY
Ticket Prices (2006)	In the Action, $205/$195; Club 200 VIP, $70; Club 200 Infield, $68/$62/$57; Premium Dugout, $65/$59/$54; Field Level Infield, $63/$57/$52; Club 200 Baselines, $42/$39/$29; Field Level Bases, $42/$39/$29; Field Level Baselines, $32/$28/$20; 100 Level Outfield, $26/$23/$15; 200 Level Outfield, $24/$21; 200 Level Family Zone, $9; 500 Level, $9
League	American League
Parking	There are a ton of parking spots in surface lots and ramps within six blocks of the ballpark, as well as a Rogers Centre parking ramp and a CN Tower ramp. During the day the area surrounding the ballpark is a business district, and as those spots are vacated they are replaced by game attendees. Some prices for lots are as high as $10, but if you look around a little you can find parking ramps, such as the Simcoe ramp on Front Street, for as low as $5. The lots immediately east of the ballpark north of Bremner Boulevard and west of York Street are convenient and inexpensive as well.
Address/Directions	One Blue Jays Way, Toronto. Most visitors will come in on the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) freeway from the east. At one point the QEW splits into Gardiner Expressway and Lakeshore Boulevard; both will bring you to the ballpark. From Gardiner or the QEW, take the Spadina Avenue exit north; from Lakeshore Boulevard take the Rees Street exit and head north.
Written by:	Kevin Reichard
Rating

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Most people forget the first two MLB ballparks with retractable roofs were in Canada. Montreal’s Olympic Stadium featured a funky Kevlar-coated retractable cover that finally became operational in 1987, but Toronto’s SkyDome – now Rogers Centre – pioneered a “hard” retractable roof, proposed by two Canadian architects, Rod Robbie and Michael Allen.

When SkyDome opened in 1989, it was rightly hailed as a wondrous step forward in the engineering of massive sports facilities. Robbie and Allen solved many problems ballpark architects today are still struggling to solve; then again, spend enough money and you can solve most engineering problems. When it opened, SkyDome was by far the most expensive stadium ever built at over $600 million. (All prices in this chapter are in Canadian dollars.)

SkyDome was also a giant step forward in anticipating what fans would expect from a ballpark: complete with a hotel and a restaurant, the SkyDome was a year-round destination years before other baseball officials realized the financial appeal of loading up a ballpark with additional attractions. (Just measure what Toronto carried out against what the White Sox settled with at U.S. Cellular Field, even though SkyDome opened two years earlier. U.S Cellular Field is a basic ballpark with few amenities or the qualities necessary to bring in fans when there’s not a game. The ballparks are contemporaries, but they are galaxies apart in almost every other way.)

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SkyDome's roof is a real roof made up of PVC membranes attached to a steel deck, not a flimsy fabric cover (so flimsy in Montreal that it was later left permanently in the "closed" position). The 11,000-ton roof is made up of three sections: two of the sections slide over the outfield and a third section rotates over home plate and underneath the other two. The roof needed a solid construction to withstand the extreme climate of Toronto – heat in the summer and lots of snow in the winter – and so far it’s held up splendidly. However, the touted roof did not begin under auspicious circumstances: during the first series played at SkyDome in June 1989, the roof would not close all the way, leaving a center open spot with rain falling down on the pitchers’ mound and home plate. The game was postponed.

And there is more to SkyDome engineering than just the roof: the grandstand part, the dugouts descend, and whole sections move when the facility’s use shifts from baseball to football. At 310 feet high (or 31 stories), it’s the tallest ballpark in the majors, but it’s still dwarfed by the landmark CN Tower next door, giving some proportion to the landscape.

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Today, Rogers Centre is still quite the engineering feat. Its creators rightly anticipated that baseball fans would want to be outside on a sunny day and indoors on a cold, wet April night (and it takes only 20 minutes to close or open the roof when the weather shifts), but they failed to anticipate one other thing: the warmth factor. With lots of exposed concrete and a sterile artificial-turf playing surface, Rogers Centre is hardly an inviting facility. The current Blue Jays front office has spiffed up the place, but there’s a long way to go before Rogers Centre can be called a warm venue.

It might be that the Blue Jays front office got so spoiled after the opening of SkyDome – setting American League attendance records and regularly selling out the house – that the fine art of customer relations never became part of the team’s DNA. Or it could be the Blue Jays had been owned for years by mega-corporation Labatt Breweries – where running the baseball team is not emphasized. Or, most likely, the absentee private corporation that ended up owning SkyDome had little incentive to squeeze more out of the place. (That attitude seems to carry over to today. Opposite section 117, there’s a customer service area where attendees are asked to “help make Rogers Centre an even better place to be! Share your bright ideas.” Thing is, no forms were fill out, and there was no sign the area had been checked in some time.)

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To their credit, the Toronto Blue Jays and Rogers are trying to spice up and humanize the ballpark experience. Some of the problems with Rogers Centre simply can’t be changed to make it a great baseball venue. From the way it was explained to us, the engineering used to convert the facility from baseball to football makes it virtually impossible to install real grass and replace the FieldTurf.

Still, we enjoyed our visit to Rogers Centre. The location simply can't be beat, with a slew of downtown attractions nearby as well as the city's vibrant Theatre District.

Before the 2005 season, Rogers did make some changes to the ballpark, first changing the name from SkyDome to Rogers Centre, but more importantly Ted Rogers (finally, both the team and the ballpark have an engaged owner) announced further upgrades to the facility, including the removal of some seating and the widening of concourses. The most notable change occurred before the 2005 season when a new Jumbotron was installed in center field (shown below): the largest display board in North America (when installed; a new display in Dolphins Stadium in 2006 will surpass this) is 33 feet tall by 110 feet wide. Also added were new video boards on the outfield walls and a racetrack scoreboard between sections. The effect of these changes is stunning, adding some sorely needed color to a bland Rogers Centre décor.

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Still, there’s something missing at Rogers Centre. The layout is a little too perfect, an oval that unfortunately evokes visions of cookie-cutter stadiums past. Perhaps it’s all that exposed concrete, the most characterless stadium building material on the planet. The sound system is outstanding, but it fails to invoke frenzy from the polite Canadian crowd.

In many ways Rogers Centre was a groundbreaking ballpark, correctly anticipating the trends that would resonate with baseball fans: retractable roof to let in and keep out the elements when appropriate; multiple restaurants overlooking the field; and a downtown location to add a layer of sophistication to the proceedings. In many ways SkyDome (as it was known as then) was ahead of its time when built; too bad the engineers creating this marvel didn't add the human touch -- an omission the Blue Jays are still working to address..

And perhaps the most egregious shortcoming is the inability to move around freely at a game. Rogers Centre was designed before the retro craze popularized open areas where fans can just stand around and watch a game, so forget about grabbing a beer and stretching your legs while viewing the game from a different vantage point. There are no escalators between the sections, so be prepared for a really, really long hike if you’ve purchased seats in the upper deck. Again, nothing the current ownership can address.

There’s a lot to like about Rogers Centre. The new ownership is clearly committed to improving the fan experience. The ballpark location is the most perfectly situated in all of major-league baseball: there’s just no way you can go to Toronto for a weekend series and not have a great time. And although the Blue Jays simply cannot change some of the shortcomings at the ballpark, early signs indicate they are working hard at fan-oriented improvements.

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Concessions
When Exhibition Stadium opened for Blue Jays baseball in 1977, it had limited concessions and no beer. No beer! One’s mind boggles at the though it attending a Canadian baseball game without Labatt Blue in hand. Then again, it took a while for Toronto to really get baseball: when SkyDome opened, McDonald’s controlled the concessions, so your food choices were extremely limited and extremely fattening.

Today the concessions are more varied, with new owners Rogers Communications promising to make more changes. The most unique food items are sold on the main level where you can find back-bacon sandwiches ($8.50, which seems a little spendy for back bacon) or kosher hot dogs for $4.25 with a potato latke ($3.75) on the side. The majority of the concession stands sell the same things: hot dogs (which, by the way, are quite good), Pizza Pizza pizza, Mr. Sub subs. Specialty offerings include Philly cheesesteaks (which seemed popular even with a price of $8.25), Icees, deli sandwiches, and veggie dogs. The beer selection includes some corporate brews (Bud, Bud Light) and local heroes (Labatt Blue, Alexander Keith’s, Moosehead). Though you may walk by it without realizing, there’s a larger bar, Fanatics, behind sections 121-122, serving a wider variety of beers, including Keith’s and Blue on tap, and Stella Artois and Guinness in a bottle. (Wine and malt beverages are also available.) It is a space that seems to symbolize all of Rogers Centre: the bar is perfectly nice, and the sitting area next to it features tables and multiple televisions showing the game, but its way too easy to walk by the whole thing and miss it completely.

Be forewarned, the concessions are not uniformly distributed. Practically no concessions can be found behind the center-field stands, so you’ll need to take a hike should you buy seats there and want some food variety.