Getty Photos“The following nice second in Canadian sports activities historical past begins as we speak.”
These remarks have been uttered in a video formally saying that Toronto can be residence to the most recent franchise of the Girls’s Nationwide Basketball Affiliation (WNBA).
The launch was celebrated at a information convention within the metropolis on Thursday, attended by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, and rap famous person Drake, who’s an envoy for town’s NBA workforce.
The brand new franchise can be the WNBA’s 14th – and the league’s first growth exterior of the US.
Additionally it is a monumental second for girls’s sports activities within the nation, particularly contemplating that basketball was invented by a Canadian.
The workforce, which is ready to start taking part in in 2026, has but to be named.
However persons are already buzzing about its identify and advertising, and what message the workforce can be sending to Canada and the world with its branding.
On social media one person steered the Toronto Dragons, which was on the short-list of names for the Raptors.
The Toronto Aurora was floated by CBC reporter Tom Harrington, as a nod to the northern lights.
Others steered Northstars, or Huskies – the identify of a historic basketball workforce in Toronto that predated the Raptors and disbanded in 1947 after just one season.
Larry Tanenbaum, the Toronto businessman who was awarded metropolis’s WNBA franchise for C$50m ($36.5m; £28.7m), instructed the Related Press that the workforce will take its time in selecting a reputation, and can “solicit public enter”.
For Misty Meeks, a public relations professional at NATIONAL, a Canada-based advertising agency, the workforce’s identify ought to match the tradition of the time, but additionally “develop and evolve over time and proceed to remain related”.
It also needs to faucet into the importance of being Canada’s first WNBA workforce, she mentioned.
“You’re not simply launching a brand new workforce, however you’re quite opening up the taking part in discipline for girls’s sports activities in Canada, and that’s an enormous endeavour,” Ms Meeks instructed the BBC.
“It’s about standing for one thing excess of only a workforce.”
Getty PhotosPrecisely 30 years in the past, town was tasked with naming one other, model new basketball workforce: the Toronto Raptors.
Tom O’Grady, who was the Nationwide Basketball Affiliation (NBA)’s first-ever artistic director on the time, recalled it being a “very troublesome task”.
“You’ve bought to keep in mind that (within the early Nineties), the Maple Leafs have been a faith in Toronto sports activities on the time,” he instructed the BBC, referencing the ice hockey workforce.
“It was hockey after which all the pieces else.”
Town’s baseball workforce – the Toronto Blue Jays – was additionally popping out of two consecutive championship wins.
Due to this, Mr O’Grady mentioned the Raptors’ advertising workforce centered on carving new floor. They might discover a distinctive identify, and outfit their gamers in a color that strayed away from the standard blue worn by town’s hockey and baseball groups.
Additionally they needed to attraction to youthful followers within the metropolis.
On the time, dinosaurs have been all the craze because of the 1993 world film hit Jurassic Park. The Raptors identify was born.
“It was good for what we have been attempting to do,” Mr O’Grady mentioned. It appealed to youngsters and positioned the Toronto Raptors as a world model.
“All people loves dinosaurs.”
The advertising workforce nonetheless needed to place the identify to the take a look at and have interaction followers by holding a contest, the place Torontonians have been capable of vote for his or her favorite identify from an inventory of 10.
Moreover the Raptors, different monikers included Bobcats, Beavers, and Hogs – a nod to Toronto’s “Hogtown” nickname.
Mr O’Grady admitted that a few different names did obtain extra votes than the Raptors.
“However I feel individuals didn’t perceive it, there have been no footage or logos (then),” he mentioned.
Many would argue that Mr O’Grady and the NBA made the fitting name.
Whereas the unique purple and crimson Toronto Raptors jerseys have been mocked by some on the time, the workforce has gone on to turn into an enormous success, profitable a championship in 2019 and galvanizing a brand new era of Canadians to play the game.
Getty PhotosMr O’Grady was additionally instrumental in launching the primary unique eight WNBA groups.
On the time, the main focus was on branding “sister franchises” of the present males’s basketball groups, he mentioned, because the groups typically performed in the identical enviornment.
Houston’s WNBA workforce identify grew to become the Comets – impressed by the Houston Rockets, and Sacramento’s workforce was named the Monarchs, after the Sacramento Kings.
One of many latest WNBA franchises – the Golden State Valkyries – is an obvious riff off the Golden State Warriors, who play in the identical enviornment.
However Mr O’Grady mentioned Toronto’s workforce has an opportunity to carve out its personal id, partly as a result of they may play at a unique venue from the Raptors – one the place town’s skilled girls’s hockey workforce additionally hosts its video games.
“I feel you need to make a press release that claims: ‘We’re not simply the sister workforce anymore. We’re standing on our personal,’” he mentioned.
Thursday’s announcement provided a couple of clues into the branding course, as Mr Tanenbaum remarked that the franchise can be “Canada’s workforce”.
“Whereas our residence base can be right here in Toronto, we’ll play video games in Vancouver and Montreal all through the season, uniting the nation behind our franchise,” he mentioned.
No matter identify the workforce chooses, Ms Meeks mentioned she hopes the franchise can be a hit embraced each by followers and sponsors.
“I do assume that the time is now,” she mentioned.
And with the current success girls’s basketball has seen, Ms Meeks added she has “excessive hopes that the WNBA can be very well-received” in each Toronto and throughout the nation.