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Rogers Centre is the rare Toronto landmark that’s easy to underestimate from the outside — a grey, curved concrete shell sitting in the CN Tower’s shadow — until the roof starts moving, or 45,000 people start making noise inside it. This Rogers Centre guide covers why it was built, the Blue Jays’ full history — two World Series titles and one heartbreaking near-miss — and what it’s actually like to catch a game there, including our own first-ever night at the ballpark. This is part of our full Toronto travel guide.
Your Rogers Centre Guide
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Why Rogers Centre Exists
The idea for a retractable-roof stadium in Toronto goes back further than most fans realize — all the way to the city’s failed bid for the 1976 Summer Olympics, which Montreal won instead. The idea resurfaced, more urgently, after a thoroughly rain-soaked 1982 Grey Cup at Exhibition Stadium convinced the city it needed a venue that could keep the weather out entirely. Architect Rod Robbie and structural engineer Michael Allen took on the challenge, and construction ran from 1986 to 1989 at a cost of roughly $570 million CAD — a genuinely enormous sum for the era, and for a Canadian sports venue especially.
What opened in 1989 as SkyDome was the world’s first stadium with a fully retractable motorized roof — a title it still holds in the sense that it got there first. The roof itself is made of four panels, three of which move, weighs roughly 11,000 tons combined, covers eight acres when fully retracted, and takes about 20 minutes to open or close. The building also broke ground by folding a 348-room hotel directly into the structure, 70 of those rooms overlooking the field itself — you can, in theory, watch a Blue Jays game from your hotel bed.
Worth knowing: the stadium was renamed Rogers Centre in 2005 after Rogers Communications — which also owns the Blue Jays — bought the naming rights. Plenty of longtime Torontonians still call it SkyDome out of habit.
It’s also the last major-league stadium in North America built to host both baseball and Canadian football, and the venue used for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2015 Pan American Games.
The Blue Jays’ Rise
The Blue Jays joined the American League as an expansion team in 1976 and played their first game in 1977, the same year as fellow expansion club the Seattle Mariners. The name came from a fan-suggestion contest — more than 4,000 entries were submitted, and 154 different people independently proposed “Blue Jays,” which won out. The team was originally owned by the Labatt Brewing Company, makers of Labatt Blue, which didn’t hurt the name’s odds.
The early years were rough — five straight losing seasons to start — before the team found its footing under manager Bobby Cox, hired in 1982. The Jays posted their first winning season in 1983 and their first postseason appearance in 1985, only to blow a three-games-to-one lead in the ALCS against the Kansas City Royals, a loss that stung for years. The team moved out of open-air Exhibition Stadium and into the newly built SkyDome on June 5, 1989 — and from there, the real run began.
Back-to-Back Champions
In 1992, the Blue Jays won the American League pennant and went on to beat the Atlanta Braves four games to two, becoming the first team based outside the United States to win a World Series. Dave Winfield drove in the winning runs in extra innings of Game 6; catcher Pat Borders won Series MVP. It remains one of the most significant moments in Canadian sports history.
They repeated the following year, beating the Philadelphia Phillies in six games in 1993 — and the way it ended is still replayed on Canadian television every October. In the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 6, Joe Carter hit a three-run, series-ending walk-off home run, only the second time in World Series history a championship had ended on a home run, and the first time one had ever been clinched on Canadian soil. Paul Molitor won Series MVP. The Blue Jays became the first American League expansion team to win a World Series, doing it in just their 16th season.
The Long Wait, and 2025
What followed the back-to-back titles was a genuinely long dry spell: 21 consecutive seasons without a playoff appearance, broken only in 2015. Then, in 2025, the Blue Jays put together one of the more improbable runs in recent baseball history. Few expected the team to contend at all that season — but after a slow start, they caught fire in June and held off a late surge from the rival Yankees to win their first AL East title since 2015.
The postseason that followed was the stuff franchises wait decades for. Toronto beat the Yankees in the ALDS behind a Vladimir Guerrero Jr. grand slam, then fell behind the Seattle Mariners two games to none in the ALCS before storming back to force a decisive Game 7 — won on a George Springer three-run home run in the seventh inning that, by every account, sent Rogers Centre into an absolute frenzy. It was Toronto’s first World Series appearance in 32 years. The Series itself, against the defending-champion Los Angeles Dodgers, went the full seven games, including an 18-inning marathon in Game 3, before the Dodgers won it in extra innings of Game 7. It was a heartbreaking way to fall one win short — but it turned a Blue Jays team almost nobody expected to contend into the story of the year in Canadian sports.
Neither of us had ever seen a baseball game before, and going in, it looked like it might be a slow sport to sit through. It wasn’t — between us figuring out the rules as we went (ChatGPT open on a phone helped more than we’d like to admit) and the atmosphere in the stadium, we were hooked by the third inning. Rogers Centre itself is a different animal from any European stadium we’ve been in — the concourse alone, with things going on well beyond the game itself, is worth the ticket price. What actually surprised us most was that this was a weekday game during office hours, and the place was still packed — not something you’d see at a midweek match back home.
We got lucky with the result, too: the Blue Jays beat the Tampa Bay Rays 3-1 that night (July 23), snapping what had been a rough stretch of games for the team — understandable, in hindsight, for a club still riding the emotional high and low of the previous October’s World Series run. We’d go back to watch another game without hesitation, and knowing what we know now about the team’s history, it’s hard not to wish we’d been in the building for Game 7 of the ALCS instead. See the full day that led up to it — including a ferry to the Toronto Islands that same afternoon — in our Toronto Weekend Itinerary.
Tickets and Practical Info
The rest of this Rogers Centre guide is history and atmosphere — this part is the logistics. Rogers Centre is at 1 Blue Jays Way, a short walk from Union Station and directly beside the CN Tower — the two are close enough that a game and a tower visit fit comfortably into the same day. Single-game ticket pricing varies enormously by opponent, day of week, and how deep into a playoff race the team is.
Toronto Blue Jays Tickets
Single-game tickets for every Blue Jays home date at Rogers Centre.
Check Tickets on TicketmasterAll Rogers Centre Events
Not just baseball — concerts, other live events, and anything else on at Rogers Centre.
See Events on Hello TicketsWhere to Stay
Downtown and the Harbourfront put you closest to Rogers Centre, the CN Tower, and the Distillery District — all walkable. Full neighbourhood breakdown in the Best Hotels in Toronto guide.
Fairmont Royal York
A genuinely majestic hotel right by Union Station, and about as close to Rogers Centre as a hotel gets — this is where we stayed for our own three days in Toronto.
Check AvailabilityFrequently Asked Questions
Is Rogers Centre the same as SkyDome?
Yes — it opened in 1989 as SkyDome and was renamed Rogers Centre in 2005 after Rogers Communications bought the naming rights. Many locals still call it SkyDome.
Is a Blue Jays game worth going to if you don’t follow baseball?
Yes — we went in with zero knowledge of the rules and came away wanting to go back. The atmosphere carries the night even if you’re still figuring out what’s happening on the field.
How close is Rogers Centre to the CN Tower?
They’re immediate neighbours — close enough that the Tower is visible from inside the stadium whenever the roof is open. See our CN Tower Guide for the full story on the building right next door.
Did the Blue Jays win the 2025 World Series?
No — they made their first World Series appearance in 32 years but lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a seven-game series that went to extra innings in the deciding game.
What’s the best way to see the roof in action?
There’s no schedule for it — the roof opens and closes based on weather, so catching it move is mostly a matter of luck on game day.
Route & Stay is reader-supported. Some of the links on this page are affiliate links, and we may earn a small commission if you book through them, at no extra cost to you. Ticket prices and team details were accurate at the time of writing but can change — always confirm current schedules and availability before booking.