Keith Pelley, president & CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, walks through the newly-renovated area on the concourse level at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, on Oct. 8.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
When Rogers announced its takeover of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment a month ago, the first two words in the company name were front and centre.
Last week, MLSE CEO Keith Pelley talked about how he loves all of his teams, but the Leafs are his current focus.
“We head into the [NHL] season with the right double C – chemistry and culture,” Pelley said. “You have to have the right culture, which is trust. They have that right now.”
During that discussion, the hockey team got a full speech’s worth of superlatives. The basketball team got a dependent clause: “ … and the Raptors are in a rebuild …”
It’s a strange sort of No. 1 and No. 2 relationship. Business-wise, the Raptors are MLSE’s core asset. Forbes values them at US$4.1-billion. That’s 50-per-cent more than the hockey club (US$2.8-billion). Given the trajectories of the NBA versus the NHL, that disparity is going to increase, rapidly and unceasingly.
In wardrobe terms, the Leafs are a comfy jumper and the Raptors are a Savile Row tux. You may wear one more often than the other, but you’re in no doubt as to which is the more impressive. Nonetheless, MLSE keeps showing up to black-tie affairs in a sweater.
One way of looking at this is that it’s unfair. The Raptors have the vibrant, international audience, while the Leafs’ support is local Pollyannas, out-of-province contrarians and foreign masochists.
The Raptors can vividly recall their past championship, while the Leafs have to consult prehistoric cave paintings to get the sense of their golden age.
The other way of looking at this is that it’s the sweetest deal in sports.
Pelley calls what the Raptors are doing a “rebuild.” It’s more like a renovation from hell.
The Raptors dragged out the teardown until their expendable assets had lost their value. The result is a neither/nor team that might be called The Scottie Barnes Players.
On lead vocal, guitar, bass, drums and doing a little T-shirt manufacture, you’ve got Barnes. Then you’ve got 11 other guys who sing backup vocals.
A rebuilding team would be drafting Barnes this year or next, and hoping he’d become the finished article in three or four seasons. It would spend those years arraying top, young talent around him.
Barnes is already finished. He just signed his first max contract. That’s when guys who were just happy to have a job suddenly become focused on what their work means. As in, if I agree to continue working for you, how are you helping me build the vision of my future?
The Raptors start their regular season next week. All the preview bumpf has focused on Barnes, mostly trying to convince people that he’s happy playing for a loser. He says he’s happy. Anyone who watches sports knows it has to be true then.
The lookaheads are long on details and light on sweep because it’s only by focusing on the little things – What will the offence look like? Who’s the two guard? – that it’s possible to work up any excitement.
Big picture, the Raptors are trapped. They may just barely make the playoffs – which would be good for MLSE’s quarterly results and bad for the team.
The Raptors don’t need marginal profits. They need high-quality draft picks. Their current situation makes that a remote possibility.
Here’s the good part. If this were the Leafs, people would be baying for blood as the season begins. Forget about the future. They’d need a couple more years to litigate the past. Break out the blue-light kit and let’s get forensic on the Pascal Siakam and O.G. Anunoby trades. Who’s to blame and how can I write my member of parliament about it?
If the Blue Jays had done it, people would be even angrier. Not because they like the baseball team more than the Leafs, but because they like the people running them less.
But the Raptors? Nobody is upset. Everyone wants to understand. This year’s not going to work out? Oh. Bummer. Are the Raptors okay? Should I ask them if they want to get a drink and talk about it?
Part of this is the championship aura, still offering some protection five years later. Part of it is Masai Ujiri, and the halo of competence he puts over the team. Part of it is that basketball people are going to watch basketball regardless of its quality.
But one suspects that the Raptors get the benefit of being least worst. In a city that specializes in sports franchises that alienate everyone who loves them, someone has to likeable.
The Raptors – overlooked for no better reason than that they don’t play the national pastime – are the best of a bad lot. They won’t change your life, but they’re also not going to ruin it.
Even in a season that’s guaranteed to be a disappointment, the arena will be full. The hierarchy isn’t changing. Nobody needs to make panic moves. Or any moves.
There is a possible world in which this all comes together (though not this year). If Barnes is Kawhi Leonard, Immanuel Quickley becomes Kyle Lowry, some team needs to dump a superstar that no one else wants and lightning strikes the same spot twice.
The greater possibility is that this lack of urgency ossifies into permanent mediocrity.
I’m sure some people wouldn’t hate that. The Vince Carter Raptors were bad, but that was still a fun time to be a Raptors fan.
You know who might really like it? MLSE.
Building a good hockey team is beyond its ken, despite the fact that expansion teams seem to do it every second or third year. While MLSE has been turning Ontario into hockey’s DMZ, the centre of NHL power has shifted to Florida. That’s how badly this has been bumbled.
You know what’s actually hard? Building a championship NBA team in Canada.
If you’re the owner, it must look pretty tempting to accept reality, ride those local good vibes for as long as they last and just float along the rising valuation tide.