The Toronto Raptors rebuilt their fan base

[sycammer]

Square has been ROCKING. Everytime I don't think it can get louder, it does, lol.

See ya'll at game 5.

anyone knows the no of people that can enter it?

it does look great.

[IMAN5]

to comment on someone's note above about immigrants, as a filipino I strongly agree. basketballs is LIFE back home in the philippines. they don't care about any sports, only basketball and now boxing because of what pacman has been doing for the last handful of years.

when filipinos come to canada all they care about is basketball, they don't watch hockey, or soccer, or baseball. maybe down the road they develop an interest for it, but majority of filipinos I know are basketball heads.

[IMAN5]

I was there for game 1 Saturday and literally lost my voice from Saturday - Tuesday. My body and back were also badly aching. My friends and I got there really early, we got there around 7ish-8am because we wanted to make sure we got in. Very early, but better to be safe than sorry. I also didn't eat or drink much since prices for stuff was crazy and I didn't want to lose my spot. Game 1 was epic even though we lost.

I almost called in sick monday and tuesday to work because I was that exhausted, standing in the cold, could not speak at all, but I forced myself in. I told myself I wouldn't go on tuesday because I needed to rest up and get healthy but I ended up going... went crazy with my raptors brothers and sisters, and got even more sick. it was raining that night a bit, colder weather, voice even worse. Couldn't talk mostly from Tuesday - Sunday.

I skipped game 3 and 4 since they were away games, plus I seriously had to get myself healthy. But I will be there for game 5 screaming til I lose my voice and then some, pumping up the crowd, going nuts, jumping up and down high fiving and pushing anyone and everyone.

LET'S GO EVEN HARDER FOR GAME 5, WE THE NORTH.

[MEDIC]

Basketball really is the youth thing, if you are under 30-35 the game is not foreign like it would be to a person who is 50 and never grew up with it.

That's a great point. I think the basketball fan demographic is a representation of the teen to mid 30's demographic in the GTA. It's not like 60 year old Chinese & Indian people have suddenly become huge Raptor fans.

A lot of the younger generation are growing up as NBA fans. It is always something that I hoped would happen, but I didn't realize that so many people would make it about race. Who cares which ethnicities are supporting the team. Let's just be happy that we are receiving very large fan support in general. We are all fans.

This is more about the youth demographic than it is ethnicity.

The crowds at Raptors games are much younger than both the Blue Jays & the Leafs.

I expect that as this generation of "visible minorities" age & increase their earning power, we'll see the demographic change slightly at Leaf games & Blue Jays games as well. At least I hope so.

[Zvezdan]

It wouldn't surprise me if when seeing the crazy fan support in TOR for the first round, the league changed its mind and wants a raucous 2nd rd. Miami-Toronto series.
If there are more TOR calls in the next three games that might have legit come into the equation.