The Toronto Blue Jays helped to encourage significant viewership to the World Series this past season, but it seems some people were unimpressed by the event.
With the Blue Jays taking on the Los Angeles Dodgers, who have several prominent Japanese superstars on the roster, the World Series garnered a noteworthy global audience. But former National Football League player Jason Kelce, who has become a member of the media through his “New Heights” podcast, pushed back on the idea that the matchup should be interesting.
After his brother and co-host Travis Kelce complimented the World Series on a recent episode of the podcast, Kelce downplayed the fanfare.
“You’re telling me I’m supposed to get excited about a Canadian baseball team and a team that spends more money than everybody else?” Kelce asked, per Billal Rahman of Newsweek.
That reaction elicited some pushback from Blue Jays fans on social media. And, in a recent attempt to address that pushback, Kelce chose to mock “O Canada,” the country’s national anthem, with his own version featuring stereotypes about the nation.
“O Canada, our home and native land,” Kelce sang, according to Mark Colley of the Toronto Star. “True maple syrup and poutine for our face. We say hi, we hold doors … All right, I’m out. I’m over it.”
After Kelce opted to double down on the mockery by replacing the words of the anthem with some cliches about its people, good natured as they may be, it seems unlikely that any Blue Jays fans who were bothered by his original comments will be moved to change their view.
“There are some great comedians from … Canada,” Kelce added after singing his version of the anthem, per Colley. “You would’ve thought they’d have a better sense of humor around this whole thing.”
Kelce might not have been entertained by the World Series, but Major League Baseball is touting it as an international success.
“Collectively, between the U.S., Canada, and Japan, Game 7 averaged 51.0 million viewers combined, making the 11-inning instant classic the most-watched MLB game in 34 years, since Game 7 of the 1991 World Series,” Maury Brown wrote for Forbes SportsMoney. “The complete seven-game series average viewership reached a combined 34.0 million viewers across the U.S., Canada, and Japan, marking the largest audience for the World Series since 1992 and representing a 19% increase compared to last year, when the series between the Dodgers and Yankees lasted just five games.”
