Punchline material? Not now
Toronto was ranked dead last among North American sports cities in 2011 by ESPN, and second-worst as recently as 2015 by the data crunchers at the10and3.com. No one’s laughing now. Toronto’s pro sports landscape has undergone a remarkable metamorphosis in a short time. After playoff runs by the Maple Leafs, Raptorsand Rock this past spring, four local clubs old and new — the CFL’s Argonauts, MLS powerhouse Toronto FC, rugby league’s Wolfpack and basketball’s Raptors 905 — captured league championships.
As 2018 begins, fans of every pro team in town have something to look forward to.
Even the Blue Jays, who took a step backward in 2017 after consecutive post-season appearances, are looking to compete rather than rebuild.
It’s been an entertaining brand of success fuelled by genuine star power.
Leaf Auston Matthews, at 20, is already one of the NHL’s best, an American treasure on Canadian ice.
TFC captain Michael Bradley, the U.S. national team mainstay orchestrating success north of the border, stuck with Toronto for six years and saw it pay off with an MLS Cup victory this past month.
And Raptors all-star DeMar DeRozan could have left for even more money and perhaps a better shot at a championship, but chose to stay — in part, he said, because of fans’ deep commitment to Canada’s only NBA team.
Fan pride is showing all over town. Sports bars have seen increased business, and welcomed a fresh mix of clientele.
“I think, for us, it was great to see a little different array of sports fans come out of the woodwork this year,” said Jon Purdy, executive general manager of the Shark Club, which has one of its11Canadian locations in Toronto and a second on the way in 2019.
“Toronto’s been a hockey town, no doubt about that, but you’ve seen the Raptors come aboard and develop their brand in the city. And now there’s so many other great teams here and it’s great to see, say, CFL fans watch their game and then stick around and watch the tail end of a Leafs game.
“Then you have TFC (making) the playoffs the last two years, and then (winning) the MLS Cup. It was a great celebration here for us. We found with the MLS Cup, we had all these traditional soccer fans watching their team, then watching the Leafs game, too. It’s starting to make a culture of a winning city here.”
That second-worst ranking in 2015, beating only Cleveland, was based on what the website called a “misery score” that factored in, among other things, the length of time between championships and the number of major pro teams in the mix.
Even through the pain of that championship drought, Toronto fans hung in. Crowds were mostly good and sports bars were hopping.
With the Blue Jays, Raptors and TFC all advancing to the post-season in 2016 — a year when the NBA allstar game and World Cup of Hockey also hit gown — the rest of the North American sports scene couldn’t help but notice. Large contingents of fans made noise on the road as well as at home, making their presence felt wherever they went.
The next step, though, was to bring home a championship — and 2017 took care of that.
“When I moved here 12 years ago from Australia, it was a desert for sports,” Purdy said. “All my friends said: You’re moving to Toronto, that’s voted the worst sports city in North America. So to see what it’s become is tremendous.
“It’s interesting to see how a winning culture is contagious,” he added. “And the fans here are very educated. You hear them talking (about) the minute details of trades or stats, and they talk it all from Argos to Leafs.” When the CFL season opens in June, executives and staff at the Shark Club in Calgary will be wearing Argos jerseys for a day — the result of some smack talk between execs in the two cities represented in November’s snowy Grey Cup game, and a sign of how much winning matters to people.
“We’ll enjoy that day,” Purdy said.