‘Mass euphoria’ is how Raptors fan Jake Clements describes the team’s championship win – something many viewed as a long shot and an event that united the country. Here, fans gathered across the city to celebrate together.Brian Jones
Jake Clements can vividly recall his emotional reaction to the Toronto Raptors winning their first NBA championship in 2019. “Mass euphoria,” he says. “But there were also probably some tears.” He remembers huddling around the television with his friends in pure shock and disbelief. Could our Raptors really go all the way? “Championships were just never in the conversation growing up in Toronto,” says Clements. “So for it to actually happen, it was so surreal. Just a shock of emotions.”
That shock of emotions reverberated through Raptors bandwagoners and diehard fans alike. It was an overwhelming sense of pride for the underdog finally beating the odds. “There’s no other NBA team in Canada,” says Clements. “So everybody feels like that’s their team.”
Canadian fans have a soft spot for underdogs. Whether it’s the Montreal Canadiens making a surprising playoff run or the Raptors capturing the NBA title, rooting for teams that beat the odds hits home. Fans see their own journeys in these teams’ struggles, and it creates a unique bond that’s celebrated through social media, in-person gatherings and events – a true source of national pride for a country that already sees itself as the underdog. When our teams win, we win.
Sports fandom and national identity go hand in hand. And part of being Canadian – and a Canadian sports fan – is comparing ourselves with our mightier southern neighbour. Dr. Simon Darnell, a professor of sport for development and peace at the University of Toronto, calls this cultural feature our “underdog sense of nationalism.” Darnell says that sticking by our so-so sports teams “helps us to establish ourselves as a big player when our national identity is not always tied directly to that.”
No fandom better exemplifies this than that of the Toronto Maple Leafs. “When the Leafs win, you’ll hear fans in conversation saying, ‘Oh, we had a great game last night,’” says Michael Naraine, an associate professor of sport management at Brock University, “And ‘we’ is the operative term.” When the team they’re rooting for wins, fans engage in what social psychologists call basking in reflected glory or BIRGing, where they see the win as a collective effort. But how do fans recover after a loss? By CORFing, or cutting off the reflected failure – the opposite of BIRGing. “They say, ‘Oh, they had a bad game,’” says Naraine of how fans work to distance themselves from their team’s failure.
Social media plays a central role in uniting a broad spectrum of fan tribes, from casual viewers to hardcore followers – especially during the off-season. On platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, people can follow sports teams, share highlights with friends and connect with fellow fans. “How does the tribe continue to proliferate?” says Naraine of the goal to keep fans engaged year-round. “To gain more members, more warriors, and be the best possible tribe that it can be.”
Today, Naraine says, sports teams are like brands, and brands have to stand for something and make a promise to consumers. “For the Raptors, it’s an embrace of Canadiana, of being the underdog,” he says. In 2019, the creative agency Sid Lee spearheaded the iconic “We The North” campaign for the Raptors. In the history of sports marketing, few slogans have been as galvanizing.
In sports, the outcomes of games are unpredictable; you never know if “your” team is going to win or lose. And rooting for an underdog team is, ultimately, irrational. But, says Naraine, irrationality is what makes sports so great. “That’s why people keep coming back to it, because it is uncertain,” he says. “But that hope drives the passion and emotion.”
