TORONTO — Major League Baseball’s biggest star is back on the sport’s biggest stage, but the circumstances are rather different from last year. 

Both the league and Ohtani experienced a Beatlemania-type of fan interest and media attention as the two-way superstar reached the World Series for the first time in his career. Now an MLB champion and nearly two years into his Dodgers tenure, Ohtani is more acclimated to the limelight, and he was squarely focused on the upcoming games against the Blue Jays as he faced another onslaught of press during Thursday’s media day. 

“The Blue Jays are the team with the most momentum, and they’re also very talented,” Ohtani said through his interpreter. “So my job, our job, is to ensure that we win the first couple games here so that we can stop their momentum and head back to L.A.”

The other key divergence from last year’s World Series is that Ohtani is back to pitching after recovering last year from an elbow injury, and he has once more reached elite form on the mound. During the clinching Game 4 of the National League Championship Series last week, Ohtani hit three home runs while also striking out 10 on the mound in what has been widely described as the greatest performance in a single baseball game.

As a result, this World Series will be the first in which Ohtani’s two-way skills, which have fueled widespread fascination among fans around the globe, are on full display. As of now, Ohtani is likely to start Game 4 on the mound for the Dodgers. 

“If there’s a rock-star type of fandom in sports, he is that,” said Dodgers pitcher Michael Kopech. “Athletes are usually based around a team, but there are certain players that stand above not just the team, but an entire organization, like MLB itself, and Shohei is that player. I think none of us have ever seen anything like this, and then he’s only getting better.”

International Aspects

This year’s World Series matchup, meanwhile, recalls the Blue Jays’ active pursuit of Ohtani during his free agency after the 2023 season—a scenario that led to a then-record $700 million contract with the Dodgers. There was lots of drama around that, including widespread, but inaccurate, speculation that Ohtani was on a private plane headed for Toronto so he could sign with the Blue Jays.

Blue Jays manager John Schneider quipped that he hoped Ohtani would return the Blue Jays hat given to him during a free-agency meeting nearly two years ago, as well as a jacket for his beloved dog, Decoy. Ohtani said that it was still in his garage and that he plans to keep it as a gift.

“It’s an unfortunate reality as a free agent that you get to really pick one team,” Ohtani said. “The decision had to be made, but again, [the Blue Jays] organization has been superb. They have a lot of awesome people.”

Ohtani’s presence back in the World Series, meanwhile, will undoubtedly spur more historic levels of viewership in his home country of Japan. The NLCS averaged 7.34 million viewers there, up 26% from last year’s record-setting figure. The Game 4 heroics, meanwhile, produced an average of 10.26 million in a country of about 123 million. 

Those averages and peaks are both expected to grow further as the Dodgers aim to become MLB’s first back-to-back champion in 25 years.

TORONTO — U.S. viewership for the 2025 World Series is going to show a decline from last year. The question is by how much, and to what degree that will be countered by record-level audiences expected in Canada.

The Dodgers–Blue Jays matchup, producing the first truly international World Series in 32 years, creates a particularly unique situation that will also alter how the event’s performance on television is evaluated.

On the surface, the presence of the Blue Jays in this year’s World Series creates an immediate issue for U.S. viewership. Toronto is not part of Nielsen’s U.S.-based audience measurement, which led to flat viewership numbers for the American League Championship Series from last year, despite the high drama of the Blue Jays’ seven-game thriller with the Mariners. 

Even as MLB continues its push to grow its presence nationally and internationally, locally based viewership from competing teams is a critical driver of overall consumption. 

As a result, reaching last season’s U.S. average of 15.8 million for the five-game World Series between the Yankees and Dodgers—a seven-year high—is all but impossible. For Fox, though, there are still silver linings. 

“Chances are if the World Series goes five games or more, total viewing of the entire postseason in the U.S. will be up versus 2024,” tweeted Fox Sports president of insights and analytics Mike Mulvihill. “That would be a good story when you’ve traded the Yankees for Toronto in the World Series. It’s hard to argue that the state of MLB is anything but very strong, although for some reason plenty of people seem to like to try.”

Big Impact North of the Border

It’s an entirely different situation in Canada. Even before the World Series, Sportsnet reached an all-time high for Blue Jays viewership with Game 7 of the ALCS, posting an average audience of 6 million. That figure represented about 15% of the entire Canadian population, a level of penetration seen in the U.S. only for the later rounds of the NFL playoffs and the Super Bowl. 

That will only escalate in the World Series as the Blue Jays’ run has become a source of deep national pride for all of Canada.

“The appetite across the country for the Jays has been nothing short of incredible,” Sportsnet VP Rob Corte tells Front Office Sports. “In particular, the interest just in the last couple of years has really jumped. And we have had the unique opportunity this year to track the team all the way from spring training to what we hope is the pinnacle.”

The presence of the Blue Jays in the World Series also marks a significant first for Sportsnet. Without the Blue Jays there, the network would have taken MLB’s international feed to show the World Series to Canadian viewers. This year, however, Sportsnet will have what is the first native production of the World Series by a Canadian broadcaster, in part leveraging some resources from Fox. Sportsnet has branded the World Series as the biggest single production initiative it has undertaken in its history. 

The situation also reflects the powerful nature of Rogers Communications, which owns the Blue Jays, Sportsnet, Rogers Centre, and now has majority control of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment. 

Game 1 of the World Series is Friday at 8 p.m. ET in Toronto. 

YouTube TV is embroiled in its fourth major carriage battle in the last three months, as the Google-owned streamer is now in conflict with ESPN parent company Disney.

The Disney–YouTube TV contract expires Oct. 30, and both sides are beginning to run consumer alerts about the potential loss of those channels on the service.

“This is the latest example of Google exploiting its position at the expense of their own customers,” Disney said in a statement. “We invest significantly in our content, and expect our partners to pay fair rates that recognize that value. If we don’t reach a fair deal soon, YouTube TV customers will lose access to ESPN and ABC, and all our marquee programming—including the NFL, college football, NBA, and NHL seasons—and so much more.”

The dispute follows ones that YouTube TV had with NBCUniversal and Fox that ultimately were resolved, in part through political pressure, and another with Spanish-language programmer TelevisaUnivision that remains active, with those channels off the platform. Earlier in 2025, YouTube had another similar battle with Paramount that ultimately produced a new deal. 

Like those other situations, the Disney–YouTube TV conflict centers mostly on carriage fees, though larger structural issues, such as how Disney’s Hulu interacts with YouTube TV, are also at play. As programming costs continue to rise, YouTube TV’s ability to present itself as a low-cost alternative to traditional cable and satellite TV—a core part of its original business model—becomes more challenged. 

“Disney is proposing costly economic terms that would raise prices for YouTube TV customers and give our customers fewer choices, while benefitting Disney’s own live TV products,” YouTube TV said in a statement.

If a deal is not reached and the channels are dropped, YouTube TV said it will offer subscribers a $20 credit. 

YouTube TV is the No. 4 pay-TV distributor in the U.S., trailing only Spectrum, Comcast, and DirecTV. Disney, meanwhile, has had prior battles of its own, with Spectrum in 2023, producing a transformative deal, and with DirecTV last year. 

Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr, who has played a sizable role in some of the prior YouTube TV disputes and many similar ones elsewhere in the industry, has not publicly weighed in on this latest situation.