When the Toronto Blue Jays started their playoff run, something more than a World Series was brewing.
Tim Hortons, which has partnered with the baseball team for roughly 20 years, was working on turning its hot beverage cups blue and emblazoning them with a Jays logo.
Almost immediately after their Oct. 12 release in Ontario and parts of Atlantic Canada, the to-go cups cropped up in customer hands and on social media. Their appearances only grew as the team made it deeper into the American League Championship Series.
"Let me put it this way, we thought we ordered enough, then we learned we didn't order enough, and then we ordered even more and luckily, they made it to restaurants on time," Tim Hortons president Axel Schwan said in an interview this week, when asked how the coffee giant decided how many cups it would need to cover a playoff run few initially expected to reach the World Series.
"Having a cup, no matter how it plays out, is just the right thing to do," he said. "That it would play out so positively, it's just the cherry on top."
While the team defied expectations and made it to the final series that will wrap Friday or Saturday, the cups and a slew of other promotions from Jays partners are about to be put to their own test — how long after a playoff run do the benefits of backing a strong team last?
Research around mega events like the Olympic Games suggests there's a two-week halo" for athletes who've won medals and the sponsors associated with them, said Ann Pegoraro, the Lang Chair in Sport Management at the University of Guelph in Ontario.
If the Blue Jays become the World Series defending champions, the team will get rings, banners and celebrations, creating more moments for brands to reactivate their relationship with the team, she said.
But any bumps in traffic, sales or attention brands garner from associations to teams in the playoffs are “much smaller than you think," Moshe Lander, a senior lecturer in economics at Concordia University in Montreal, argued.
“Do you go bank with TD because they’re a longtime sponsor of the Jays or do you go to TD because they offer you the best interest rate on your mortgage or because you feel comfortable with the broker you dealt with there or because it’s closest to where you live?” Lander said of the financial institution, whose logos appear on Jays jerseys and at its home stadium Rogers Centre.
“Same thing for Tim Hortons. Do you go buy Tim Hortons coffee because it’s associated with the Jays or because it’s substantially cheaper than Starbucks or because it’s better coffee?”
But that doesn’t mean linking your company to a World Series team has no impact.
Every time the Jays have scored nine hits, Tims has been offering customers a $1 Iced Capp with a $3 purchase. At Boston Pizza, a single home run will get customers enrolled in its loyalty program free cactus-cut potatoes the next day.
In these instances, the team is getting customers past the hesitancy they may feel about enrolling in another loyalty program, downloading an app or visiting a chain, Pegoraro said. The hope is that the app lingers on people’s phones or the in-store experience is so good, customers decide to visit again.
Other instances are meant to build brand awareness.
By placing beverages on player benches and press conference tables or splashing a logo across the stadium, brands are teaching and reminding viewers they exist.
While that kind of attention is especially useful for small brands that aren’t yet household names in Canada or newer ones being introduced to the market, several Jays backers are neither, Lander pointed out.
Rogers, the team owner, is one of a few telecommunications giants in the country, making it known from coast to coast. TD and Tim Hortons have just as venerable positions in their industries.
For them, the advertising will likely be about “maintaining top of mind awareness” and perhaps reaching L.A. Dodgers fans, Pegoraro said.
The opposing team has one of the most lucrative audiences because its proximity to Hollywood means many of its fans are wealthy, powerful and in the U.S., where TD and Tim Hortons have both been working to expand their businesses.
And the Dodgers' bevy of Japanese stars, including Shoehei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, are also drawing in an Asian audience.
“When people come to the country, they'd be aware of Tim Hortons as a brand and might ... be more apt to stop in," Pegoraro said. "But I can't think that there's a direct benefit at this point to the Blue Jay sponsors."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 31, 2025.
