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Is Toronto A Small Market Team?
Posted on | July 31, 2009 | 4 Comments
Austin Burton, of Slam Magazine, just wrote an article where he says that, despite the size of the city, when it comes to professional sports, Toronto is a small market city. He talks about the number of times the Raptors have been on US television and how popular the franchise player, Chris Bosh is, as proof. I agree and disagree with him.
The main ammunition for some Toronto fans when calling the owners cheap, is that they don’t spend like they are the 4th largest market in the league, which they technically are (behind New York, Los Angeles and Chicago). A few problems with that. The first is the exchange rate and corporate tax. The Raptors pay out mostly in American dollars, but get most of their money in Canadian. When the exchange rate is at par, it’s no problem, but for the 99.9999% of the time it isn’t, that means the Raptors are essentially paying more on the dollar than every other team. The high Canadian corporate tax rate also hurts the bottom line.
As for the population base, Toronto is technically the fourth largest market, but that’s only when the actual city population is looked at. When looking at the metropolitan population, Toronto suddenly drops to 7th, behind Dallas, Philadelphia and Houston, and just ahead of Miami, Atlanta and Washington.
Of course, the writer wasn’t talking about economics or population bases. He was talking about something else. And this is where I have the problem. See, the writer, I’m guessing, is American. And without getting into any American bashing, some Americans tend not to see the big picture a lot of times. The writer talks about how Bosh is less popular than Chris Paul and Ray Allen only because he plays for the Raptors. In Canada. Flawed logic, to say the least. Firstly, it’s debatable whether Ray Allen, who’s been in a Spike Lee movie, has a championship ring and played in way more playoff games than Bosh, is even more popular.
Only once, since Bosh became an All-Star, has Ray Allen gotten more votes than him, and that was the Celtics Championship season when they were the talk of the league. Yes, Allen sells more jerseys, but that also probably has to do with his Championship ring than where he plays. Boston is not a large market team, but they have a vaunted history behind them. The Raptors do not.
Chris Paul has been on the NBA 1st and 2nd team the last two years, and finished second in MVP voting two years ago. He’s a 6 foot-nothing point guard who is exciting to watch, partially because he is so small, yet rebounds and plays much bigger. He’s a better player than Bosh and had a huge playoffs during his best season, two seasons ago, when his team pushed San Antonio to the brink in the second round. Playoffs make a player, in the NBA. Ask Trevor Ariza.
Secondly, if Chris Bosh is less popular than the writer perceives he should be, it might have to do with Bosh himself. Yes, Bosh is friendly, accessible and tries to make himself as visible as possible through the internet, but his game, or image, is not typical of a popular player. He doesn’t have an edge and fire of an Iverson or Garnett. He isn’t a high flying skywalker like Dwight Howard, LeBron James or Kobe Bryant. And he does not have an exciting, small guy playing with the big boys, game like Chris Paul, Dwayne Wade or even Nate Robinson. Bosh is a relatively skinny, jumpshooting big man who, despite being quick and athletic, doesn’t play above the rim much. Plus, he’s not an overly emotional player on the court, which fans love to see. Even Raptors fans have talked about how boring the guy is. If even your own team’s fans aren’t thrilled about watching a player, why would other team’s fans be?
The problem here, however, is that the writer of the article is looking through his very narrow American view of things. The Raptors and Chris Bosh are not popular in the US, so they are not popular. Many Americans might be surprised that an entire world goes on outside of the US. Colangelo, despite being an American, has figured this out. He’s figured out that Americans, in general, don’t particularly like anything that’s not American, and have trouble seeing outside of their borders, so he has taken a global view. Will it make the Raptors more popular in the US? No. And no one should really care. When the Raptors make the playoffs this year, as they will hopefully and should do, it’s a good bet the Raptors popularity in Europe will skyrocket. Already, Bargnani jerseys are apparently the 10th best selling jersey in Europe. The Raptors are currently `Canada’s team’, and are soon to be `Europe’s team’, too. I wouldn’t particularly call that small market.
All that doesn’t necessarily mean that writers like Austin Burton will get his head out of his ass long enough to realize the world doesn’t end at the US border, but since he’s a writer in another country, I guess I shouldn’t care.
