After millions of Japanese fans watched the Toronto Blue Jays in last month’s World Series, someone inside the team thought it was the right moment to capitalize. On Monday in Tokyo, Blue Jays logos were splashed across the mat for a world-title boxing match. In one Kyodo News photo from the bout, bantamweight boxer Tensuhin Nasukawa knelt down with a red maple leaf — part of the Jays’ logo — and some of the team’s lettering situated over his right shoulder.
The only problem? The Blue Jays went rogue.
Major League Baseball teams are not supposed to place ads abroad without the league office’s blessing, which the Jays did not have. Japan is a scorching hot market for MLB, but commissioner Rob Manfred’s office controls international branding there and elsewhere. That’s in no small part because MLB wants to avoid a free-for-all between teams trying to grab a slice of a given market.
The Blue Jays said they were aware of the sponsorship in advance of the logo being used and that it was not a paid sponsorship. The league office was not involved, people briefed on the advertisement’s placement who were not authorized to speak publicly said.
The commissioner’s office declined comment. It’s unclear how MLB will follow up on the matter or whether it would consider any punishment.
“We have a large swath of rights in terms of international that are exclusive to Major League Baseball,” commissioner Rob Manfred said in an interview with The Athletic in the spring, referring to the league’s central office.
In December 2023, the Blue Jays lost out in the bidding for the greatest Japanese player of them all, Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Last offseason, Roki Sasaki “strongly considered” signing with Toronto, he said, before joining Ohtani in Los Angeles. Now, after a seven-game World Series in which Ohtani, Sasaki and pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the World Series’ MVP, led the Dodgers past the Blue Jays, the Jays are still trying to make inroads.
“I hope this will let people in Japan learn about the Blue Jays too,” the Blue Jays’ director of Pacific Rim operations, Hideaki Sato, said of the boxing-mat advertisements, per the translation of a post on X from reporter Daisuke Sugiura.
昨日、記した通り、今夜の那須川天心対井上拓真戦はトロント・ブルージェイズが協賛。リングにMLBチームのロゴマークが入っているのはなかなか斬新な光景です。 @BlueJays https://t.co/bjNLujdmQj pic.twitter.com/lfM0YgzAVK
— Daisuke Sugiura 杉浦大介 (@daisukesugiura) November 24, 2025
While the Jays have rostered Japanese players like Yusei Kikuchi and Munenori Kawasaki, the only player they’ve signed in recent years directly from Nippon Professional Baseball, Japan’s top league, is Shun Yamaguchi. The right-hander agreed to a two-year, $6.35 million deal in 2019 and appeared in just 17 games for Toronto, posting an 8.06 ERA.
Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins, at the GM meetings in Las Vegas earlier this month, characterized the players expected to come over from Japan this offseason as “a good crew.” The group is headlined by infielder Munetaka Murakami and pitcher Tatsuya Imai.
“Some exciting players with really good experiences that could complement the Blue Jays well,” Atkins said.
But teams have guidelines in place for recruitment of both fans and players abroad. The league’s international efforts, from the TV rights MLB sells to the games the league holds abroad, are intended to benefit all 30 clubs.
MLB will sometimes give teams standing discretion to advertise in certain markets, but Japan is typically not one of those markets. Sometimes, as well, MLB and teams will effectively pool their branding rights together. The Dodgers, for example, started a fan club in Japan.
“You’re going to see some fan-club events in Japan that are different than anything we’ve done,” Manfred said in the spring, “and those are a joint effort between us and the Dodgers, because both of our rights are involved.”
AloJapan.com