Toronto Raptors: Which Company Should Sponsor Their Jerseys?
By Demar Grant
It’s that time of year, Canada. Who are you cheering for tonight? pic.twitter.com/qc0q37KwHb
— Tim Hortons (@TimHortons) October 12, 2016
Tim Hortons
More Canadian than poutine and maple syrup (even though it isn’t), the Toronto Raptors represent more than just Toronto, their Canada’s NBA team. Tim Hortons has embraced hockey culture so much that the coffeehouse chain has become an essential part of it and by extension a part of Canadian culture.
Basketball, which a Canadian invented, has been on the rise in the country over the past few years and is starting to also become part of the national identity. Tim Hortons has hockey culture enveloped in an iron grip, but it doesn’t hurt to expand.
The NBA has tapped into the millennial generation with its Vineable plays and 180 character hot takes. When DeMar DeRozan throws down a ferocious 360 jam, the camera switches to him personally. During and directly after that dunk everyone is paying attention to one player, and the jersey draped over them. That clips gets played millions of times on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Vine. Young people clamor to social media and millennials are beginning to surpass baby boomers in defining the majority of the Canadian population.
The NBA is the youngest North American major league demographically, and Kids still love hot chocolate, and basketball season actually coincides with the frigid winters that are all too familiar.
Basketball has always been a relatively cheap sport to play, it only requires a ball and two hoops allowing for it to be accessible to people of different socioeconomic backgrounds. That’s why it fits the city of Toronto so well.
Toronto is the most (or third most depending on who you ask) cosmopolitan city in the entire world. In fact, Patrick Patterson’s favourite thing about Toronto is the multiculturalism, the cultural Mosaic Canada boasts about being able to conserve. People from all races, religions, classes and creeds live there. Maybe not all of them could afford hockey equipment and ice time, but almost all of them can afford a ball and most schools already have the hoops.
The coffee (or hot chocolate) isn’t very expensive either, it’s accessible to all Canadians and that accessibility to all Canadians (and all North Americans) is a point where Tim Hortons can connect to all Raptors fans young and old.