Fansided

Toronto Raptors Hoping To Be Canada’s Team With Tour

By Ed Carroll

Apr 22, 2014; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Raptors guard DeMar DeRozan (10) and center Jonas Valanciunas (17) and guard Kyle Lowry (7) come off the court after a play against the Brooklyn Nets in game two during the first round of the 2014 NBA Playoffs at Air Canada Centre. Toronto defeated Brooklyn 100-95. Mandatory Credit: John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports
Apr 22, 2014; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Raptors guard DeMar DeRozan (10) and center Jonas Valanciunas (17) and guard Kyle Lowry (7) come off the court after a play against the Brooklyn Nets in game two during the first round of the 2014 NBA Playoffs at Air Canada Centre. Toronto defeated Brooklyn 100-95. Mandatory Credit: John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports /
facebooktwitterreddit

The Toronto Raptors are making a push to win over Canadian NBA fans with preseason games in Montreal and Vancouver as part of the team’s “We The North” campaign.

The Toronto Raptors are hoping their final preseason game in Montreal, along with a game in Vancouver earlier in the month, will help convert Canadian fans to support the Raptors, the only NBA team based in the country right now.

More from NBA

It’s part of the team’s “We The North” campaign, as the Raptors want to become the most popular NBA team throughout Canada.

The campaign follows the release of an NBA Fan Map on the New York Times’s Upshot blog, which showed that the Raptors weren’t even in the top-three most-popular NBA teams in Montreal and Vancouver, something the Raptors are hoping to change by increasing the team’s exposure in those two cities.

It’s worth noting Vancouver was the original home of the Memphis Grizzlies, and that team entered the league in 1995, the same year as Toronto, before relocating after the 2000-2001 season.

But the Vancouver’s first tour with the NBA doesn’t seem to have soured the city on future hoops action: the Raptors sold out the team’s preseason game at Rogers Arena on October 5 against the Sacramento Kings, and DeMar DeRozan said the arena sounded “like a playoff game.”

More from FanSided

Home/NBA