Can the success of the Jays and Raptors convert Toronto from a single-sport city?
In the first week of the MLB season, Blue Jays star pitcher, Marcus Stroman, wrote an article for The Players’ Tribune titled “The 6ix.” Stroman started his article with what he admits was an audacious statement, saying “I’m going to tell you something you probably didn’t know. Toronto is a baseball city.” It’s a fairly loaded statement, and it deserves careful unpacking.
[pullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Toronto, like most cities, rallies behind successful teams…[/pullquote]Stroman did say that Toronto is a hockey city—of course it is—but then went further by saying that “it’s also a basketball city. […] Then you got Drake, Bieber, The Weeknd—so it’s also a music city.” Here, Stroman showed his age and his declaration became a little more problematic.
Certainly Drake, Bieber, and The Weeknd are pop music icons of the modern age, but to attribute them as a benchmark of the rich and diverse artistic culture that Toronto has purveyed for decades is foolhardy to say the least.
Toronto, like most cities, rallies behind successful teams, it was seen in the early ’90s with the Blue Jays, and the Raptors at the turn of the millennium. The Leafs are an exception to this rule, an enigmatic entity in the world of professional sports that receive almost unanimous adulation across the province, and no matter where they finish in the standings, they always seem to find a way to raise ticket prices the following year.
The Raptors and Blue Jays, thanks to young superstars like Stroman, are championship caliber teams right now. This is the Toronto that’s known to Stroman, the Toronto with legions of screaming fans and impressive support across the city. But, there is a Toronto that the young guns have not seen, a Toronto that struggled to put fans in seats as recently as a few years ago. The teams weren’t even bad, but they just weren’t great. Just four years ago, the Blue Jays’ average attendance was less than half of the Rogers Centre’s capacity, does that sound like a baseball city?
[pullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Toronto could be a baseball city, and it could be a basketball city.[/pullquote]The Raptors have suffered a similar fate in Toronto, with dismal support in the mid-to-late-2000s, the teams were unsuccessful and interest in Toronto waned accordingly. Seats were filled when high profile superstars like LeBron James and Kobe Bryant came to town, but interest from fans remained relatively stagnant in those years.
Even with this in mind, it certainly doesn’t mean that Stroman’s statement has no merit, the success of the Blue Jays in recent years has certainly converted many Torontonians into legitimate baseball followers, and bandwagon fans into lifelong supporters. The same thing has happened with the Raptors. Screaming fans pack Jurassic Park to watch the game outside of the ACC, even when the Raptors aren’t playing in Toronto.
Toronto could be a baseball city, and it could be a basketball city. I’d love for it to be both, but it will take some basement-dwelling years to find out if the support of these teams can endure seasons of missed-playoffs and blowout losses. Let’s hope we’re spared the answer for a few more years at least.