When Miller Lite signed on as the official beer of Major League Baseball in Canada, a deal that becomes official Wednesday, they hoped to tap into a nation full of sports fans who love both baseball and suds. Not only is beer a concessions staple, but three major league stadiums — Busch Stadium, Coors Field and Miller Park — are named after brewing companies.

Problem.

Canada’s only major-league team, the Blue Jays, has a pact with Budweiser and aggressively protects that deal.

The deal seems to set up a conflict between MLB Canada and the Jays but both sides say there is enough beer, and enough consumers of it, to satisfy everyone.

“What we have before us is an untapped opportunity,” says Miller Lite marketing director Keith Fawcett. “It’s bigger than the Jays. There’s a strong link between our brand and the MLB brand.”

Fawcett acknowledges the Jays are Canada’s team, but points out the fans in the Maritimes often follow the Boston Red Sox while the Minnesota Twins have supporters in Winnipeg. Miller thinks all of them are interested in beer.

And brew has been a newsworthy topic for the Jays.

Last March the team split with Steam Whistle, a craft brewery located across Bremner Ave. from the Rogers Centre, ostensibly because the company had violated the Jays’ social media policy. But until the Jays ended their deal Steam Whistle was the only beer available at Jays games that didn’t come from the Budweiser family.

Miller Lite’s five-year deal with MLB Canada doesn’t include pouring rights at the Rogers Centre, and the Jays say the sponsorship Canada won’t affect beer options at their games.

MLB executive Dominick Balsamo points out that league often deals with mismatches between local and national sponsors. While Budweiser sponsors MLB in the U.S., each team is free to seek its own local deal.

“We’re not here to interrupt what the Jays are doing,” says Balsamo, MLB’s vice president of international broadcasting and sponsorship. “(Beer sponsorships) coexist in the US and it will do the same in Canada.”

Since Miller Lite can’t sell beer at Jays games, experts say the value in the deal lies in the brewer’s ability to activate the deal through promotions and fan engagement.

Fawcett says merchandise bearing the logos of all 30 MLB teams —including the Jays’ — are an option. Other marketing pros say Miller Lite can run promotions at bars that both pour their beer and broadcast big-league games, and that aligning with MLB is almost like partnering with its sole Canadian team.

It also positions the brewer to open a relationship with the Jays in the future.

“It’s a total branding exercise as opposed to a business deal,” says sponsorship consultant Brian Cooper, president of the S&E Sponsorship Group. “And the next time the Budweiser deal comes up for (renewal), now there’s another player in the market.”

It has been eight weeks since Miller Lite first hit Canada’s crowded beer shelves. Among the 10 brews listed as the most popular on the Beer Store’s website, two are light beers but neither is Miller.

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The company decided to use sports as a wedge to pry open the competitive Canadian market, signing up as NBA Canada’s beer sponsor before aligning with MLB. Marketing experts say Wednesday’s deal gives Miller year-round exposure to a nation of deeply-engaged sports fans.

“It gives them a lever to differentiate themselves,” says marketing consultant Keith McIntyre, president of the KMAC Group. “They’re the new beer and they need awareness. This gives them awareness.”