Rapper Drake becomes the alpha Raptor
Team’s ‘global ambassador’ more properly might be called its GM without portfolio
During the tumult of his coming-out press conference (with a small bit of All-Star Game 2016 talk thrown in for variety), Drake leaned over and caught the eye of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment CEO Tim Leiweke.
Leiweke was in the midst of saying he’d already set his new business partner up in an office beside his own, and hired a staff for him. Then he winked. Later, as Drake was being shepherded through the dim corridors of the Air Canada Centre, he turned suddenly to his MLSE guide. “Do I really get an office or was that a joke?” “Whatever you want, I’m pretty sure you’ll get.”
The day was shot through with that same feeling of the world at your feet. Sitting on a “dais” (Drake’s word) with a half-dozen very powerful men, he absorbed all the light in the room.
He sparkles in a way that must be both natural and practised. At one point, he laid an affectionate arm on the guy sitting beside him — Mayor Rob Ford. As in most of his public appearances, Ford seemed enormously ill-at-ease throughout. But when Drake put hands on him, he positively glowed.
This was a torch-passing moment. You sensed it in the halting and forgettable performance by the ostensible boss, Larry Tanenbaum.
It was there in the deprecation shown to Drake by GM Masai Ujiri.
(Ujiri did provide the day’s best laugh line when it was his turn to speak: “I’m the only dumbass who didn’t bring a paper to talk from.”)
Throughout, it was the acknowledgement of a new alpha in the pack.
The Raptors are, in many important ways, Drake’s team now. On a club without names or much hope of excellence, he is the overwhelming star.
They’re calling him a “global ambassador.” It would be more correct to call him GM without portfolio.
We get a clue of where this is going from where it started. Drake has previously tried to offer his services to the Raptors, and been met with corporate silence.
Months ago, he found himself in conversation with Scooter Braun, the manager who built Justin Bieber.
“We were at a Bieber show, and we started talking about what a great opportunity this would be if we could piece it together,” said Drake. “Scooter was integral in the initial stages of me meeting Tim.”
A casual meal was arranged at MLSE’s E11even restaurant. Though separated by a gulf of life experience, Drake and Leiweke are essentially the same person — born salesmen, cultivators of people and true believers (a rare mix). One imagines that when they speak to each other, it has the ease of talking to one’s self.
“I knew his accolades, but I got to listen to him tell some incredible stories, which automatically roped me in,” Drake said, describing Leiweke as “a genius.” There’s genius in this, for all involved. The Raptors are playing the short game. Drake adds glitter and, when cap space is freed in the next couple of years, the services of a closer who can get freeagent deals done.
“I have very rare and important friendships with a lot of (players). Those are not to be abused,” Drake said. “But that said, I believe there is a buzz coursing through this city that ripples far beyond Toronto. I think it gets all the way out to the places some of these guys are at, and I think they want to come see what it’s about.”
For Leiweke and Drake, it’s a long game.
Drake will be unpaid in his position, so as to circumvent any suggestion of tampering with players under contract. The money will flow through business relationships linked to his OVO music and clothing brand.
Would he like to own a piece of this team some day?
Drake shifts from foot to foot, calibrating his vagueness.
“I would love to be as much a part of this as I possibly can,” he says, smiling suggestively.
Drake’s 26, so about 80 in hip-hop years. This is the beginning of a seismic professional transition. He still has feet in both worlds, but you begin to understand which side the momentum is carrying him to.
“This position . . . ” — one that he admits is “pretty grey right now” — “. . . makes sense for me. I’m in the city during all of my free time. To have an office here isn’t that far-fetched. I’d love to throw on a suit and come to work. Whatever the boss man is thinking for me, I’m all the way in.”
The biggest winner of all is Leiweke. He came here promising headlines. At first, he found himself the uncomfortable focus of them.
But here is a major coup — a global phenomenon that only he could deliver, as well as the chance to recede into his protégé’s enormous shadow.
He carries himself like a man of experience, but there is still a lot of kid in Drake. Huddling with his small team of childhood friends, Drake quietly asks for plaudits. “How was I? Was I good?” He was good, they all agree. He got the message out — what he calls “preaching the Gospel of Toronto.”
Who knows why Drake loves this city so much. His fixation is Joycean. But maybe this is part of it.
“This is my safe place,” Drake says. “Away from all the other stuff.”
Now the other stuff is going to come rushing in to his safe place. How he handles that will help determine how the city’s shifting sports landscape settles.