Why Rogers Centre Matters

The quick read

SkyDome opened in June 1989 as the first stadium in the world with a fully retractable roof. It went up downtown at the base of the CN Tower, with a hotel built into it whose rooms look straight onto the field. Then the building got the best opening act in baseball: the Blue Jays won the World Series in 1992 and again in 1993, the first titles ever won by a team based outside the United States, and the 1993 clincher ended on Joe Carter’s walk-off home run.

Rogers Communications bought the place in 2005 and put its name on it. A renovation in 2023 and 2024 tore out the lower bowl and rebuilt it, moved the walls, and changed how the park plays. And in 2025 the Blue Jays went back to the World Series for the first time since Carter’s homer, ran the Los Angeles Dodgers to a seventh game, and lost it. The roof, the back-to-back titles, and that 1993 home run are the heart of this park.

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SkyDome and the first retractable roof

The stadium opened in June 1989 as SkyDome, and it was the first in the world with a fully retractable, motorized roof. That was the whole pitch. Four panels, three of them moving, nesting into each other like a camera iris over about eight acres of field, with the high point of the dome sitting roughly 282 feet up. The grand-opening ceremony on June 3, 1989 drew around 60,000 people to watch the roof open for the first time, and the Blue Jays played their first game in the building two days later, on June 5, 1989.

They built it downtown, at the base of the CN Tower, with a hotel wired into the structure. Those rooms still look out over the diamond, and you can watch a game from your bed. The hotel is now the Toronto Marriott City Centre.

The roof was the engineering headline in 1989, and it still defines the place. A game here is never rained out. When the weather is warm and clear the Blue Jays open it and you get an open-air park with the tower overhead; when it is cold or wet they close it and play indoors.

Back-to-back: 1992 and 1993

The new park got the franchise’s golden era almost immediately. In 1992 the Blue Jays beat the Atlanta Braves to win the World Series, the first title ever won by a team based outside the United States. That Series also put the first World Series games ever played outside the US on the board, the first of them at SkyDome on October 20, 1992.

Then they did it again. The 1993 club beat the Philadelphia Phillies to repeat, with a lineup that reads like a Hall of Fame roll call: Roberto Alomar, Paul Molitor, John Olerud, Devon White, Rickey Henderson, Joe Carter. Two titles, two seasons, one brand-new dome.

Touch ‘em all, Joe

The clincher is one of the most famous swings in the sport. Game 6, October 23, 1993. The Blue Jays trailed Philadelphia in the bottom of the ninth, and Joe Carter hit a three-run walk-off home run off Phillies closer Mitch Williams to win the World Series on the spot. It was only the second time in history a World Series had ended on a walk-off home run.

The radio call belongs to Blue Jays broadcaster Tom Cheek, and Canadians have been quoting it for thirty years: “Touch ‘em all, Joe! You’ll never hit a bigger home run in your life!”

The numbers they retired

The Blue Jays have retired only two numbers. Roberto Alomar’s No. 12 went up in 2011; Alomar was the Hall of Fame second baseman at the center of the early-90s teams. Roy Halladay’s No. 32 went up in 2018; Halladay was the ace of the 2000s clubs. Jackie Robinson’s 42 is retired across all of baseball, so it hangs here too.

There is one more honor roll. The Level of Excellence on the 500 level carries 11 names from the franchise’s history: Bautista, Beeston, Bell, Carter, Cheek, Delgado, Fernandez, Gaston, Gillick, Halladay, and Stieb.

SkyDome becomes Rogers Centre

The park carried the SkyDome name from 1989 through 2004. Rogers Communications, which owns the Blue Jays, bought the stadium out of bankruptcy for about $25 million and renamed it Rogers Centre in 2005. Fans still campaign now and then to bring the old name back, but Rogers Centre is what it is called.

The bigger physical change came two decades later. A privately funded renovation across 2023 and 2024, reported at roughly $300 to $400 million CAD or more, reconfigured the building. The first phase in 2023 added the outfield social district, replaced upper-deck and outfield seats, and brought the outfield walls in and raised them, changing the dimensions. The second phase in 2024 demolished and rebuilt the entire 100-level seating bowl foul pole to foul pole, shrank foul territory, and added new premium clubs. The work cut capacity in two steps, down to about 39,150 for the 2026 season.

The modern era

The current Blue Jays are built around Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette, and in 2025 they broke through. They won the American League pennant and reached the World Series for the first time since 1993, then lost it to the Los Angeles Dodgers, four games to three. Game 7, played at Rogers Centre, was a 5-4 loss in 11 innings, and the Dodgers repeated as champions.

A losing seventh game is still a losing seventh game, and the Blue Jays came up one win short of a third title. But the 2025 run reset what this team is. For most of two decades Rogers Centre was a place you could get into without much planning. After 2025 it is a hot ticket, and good seats for the dates that matter go fast.