Imagine if the Bills ever won the Super Bowl. It probably won’t happen any time soon, but if it did, I can only Imagine how crazy the city would go. Things being lit on fire, riots, etc. That’s basically what is going down in Toronto as we speak. The Toronto Raptors have officially won the 2019 NBA championship behind superstar Kawhi Leonard and this is just amazing for the city. The team has been around since 1995 and this is the first time a Canadian team has ever won it all. From an economical and emotional standpoint, the city is in a good place right now.
I have been a fan of the Brooklyn Nets my entire life but the Raptors grew on me throughout this season. At the start of the season nobody would’ve predicted them to win the Eastern Conference let alone the finals. They traded arguably the most beloved player in team history, Demar Derozan, in a blockbuster deal for Kawhi Leonard and he proved to be the difference maker. The team wasn’t even on the radar until the final weeks of the season and that is what makes all of this so much better.
Every game, thousands of Toronto fans would come together outside of the stadium to watch the game and cheer their team on. It was known as “Jurassic Park”. These people didn’t even have tickets to the game, but it just goes to show you how everyone was coming together to cheer their team on throughout the postseason. I thought this was amazing and my friends and I wanted to go but couldn’t despite our work schedules. The city really did come together as a whole during this magical run.
The Raptors winning the finals also helped the city financially. Hosting the NBA finals is absolutely tremendous for revenue. It attracts tourists. For instance, people such as myself who aren’t even Raptors fans wanted to visit the city to check out Jurassic Park. The Raptors ended up playing 13 home playoff games during this run. That’s 13 more home games than they would’ve had had they not made the postseason. The arena holds about 20,000 people and multiply that by 13 and that is a lot of revenue. From ticket sales to television exposure to merchandise to tourists, the city greatly profited from this playoff run.
This ultimately shows that there is still hope for Buffalo. Our neighbors up North finally pulled it off after 24 years of existence. Hopefully the Bills can one day win the Super Bowl and the city will go crazy.
Charles Brucato
