Toronto Raptors

From Hoopedia

1 Franchise Name History
2 Franchise History
3 Franchise Arenas
4 Franchise Personnel
5 External Links

Franchise Name History

In 1993, the NBA Board of Governors officially grants Toronto an NBA expansion franchise for the 1995-96 season. The following year the team announced it would organize the "Name Game", a national name-the-team contest to assist in the development of a name, logo, and colors for Canada's first NBA expansion franchise. The franchise began a two-phased "Name Game", including a series of media contests and a national vote to help the team find a name.

After generating more than 2,000 names and receiving an aggregate list of 189 names from media top-10 lists, a final top-10 list of possible franchise names is unveiled, one that is completely dominated by animal names: Beavers, Bobcats, Dragons, Grizzlies, Hogs, Raptors, Scorpions, T-Rex, Tarantulas and Terriers. Sears, Cineplex Odeon, Sega Sports, and AST Computer are named as "Name Game" sponsors.

Raptors was chosen as the name of Canada's first NBA expansion franchise. Although the raptor is generally thought to be a small and (possibly) feathery dinosaur, the team decided to adopt the Jurrassic Park characterization of these ancient creatures as swift, lethal, and intelligent.

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Franchise History

The Toronto Raptors began their NBA life as an expansion franchise in 1995. However, this was not the first time Toronto had hosted an NBA franchise. The forerunner of the NBA, the BAA tipped off its inaugural season in Toronto in 1946 when the Toronto Huskies fell to the New York Knickerbockers. That early Canadian franchise folded but, more than 50 years later, NBA basketball would return to the city of Toronto. Read More...

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