Why Does Dodgers-Blue Jays Not Start Until Friday?

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(Photo by Thomas Skrlj/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

It’s a question we get every year.

The Blue Jays just clinched their spot in the 2025 World Series with a thrilling Game 7 win over the Mariners on Monday night, Oct. 20. The Dodgers clinched their spot in the World Series last Friday, Oct. 17.

So why do we baseball fans have to wait until Friday, Oct. 24 for Game 1 of the World Series?

Largely, it’s a matter of logistics. When the World Series schedule was set, there was no way to know how many games each League Championship Series would play. If the Dodgers-Brewers NLCS had gone to a Game 7, they would have played on Tuesday, Oct. 21.

If that had happened, a two-day break to reset for the World Series would have made perfect sense. It gives teams a day to rest, recovery and travel followed by a day at the site of Game 1 for workouts to prepare for the series opener.

And for Fox, the schedule of having games on Friday-Saturday, Monday-Wednesday and Friday-Saturday is perfect.

Yes, that does mean MLB will avoid going up against Sunday Night Football. For a television network looking to maximize ratings, that’s a very logical choice, even if it may annoy some baseball fans. Last year, four of the 11 most-watched prime-time telecasts of the year were Sunday Night Football games. All 15 SNF games ranked among the top 40 telecasts of the year in the U.S. And while the World Series TV ratings last year were very good, the top-rated WS game still came in lower than five Sunday Night Football games.

If the Mariners or Blue Jays had swept through the ALCS, fans would have had to endure a much longer gap between games, as that series could have finished as early as last Thursday, Oct. 16. Last season, MLB had a contingency plan that would have moved up the start date of the World Series in a situation like that to have it begin on the next Tuesday. That contingency plan wasn’t used last year, and it wasn’t built into the schedule this year.

So, while we may have a three-day gap before the World Series begins on Friday, thankfully we did have a Game 7, as we could have had as much as a one-week wait between games.

World Series Schedule 2025

GameDateTimeScheduleBroadcastERGame 1Oct. 248 p.m. ETDodgers at Blue JaysFoxGame 2Oct. 258 p.m. ETDodgers at Blue JaysFoxGame 3Oct. 278 p.m. ETBlue Jays at DodgersFoxGame 4Oct. 288 p.m. ETBlue Jays at DodgersFoxGame 5Oct. 298 p.m. ETBlue Jays at DodgersFoxGame 6Oct. 318 p.m. ETDodgers at Blue JaysFoxGame 7Nov. 18 p.m. ETDodgers at Blue JaysFox

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