Which country does Toronto come from?

First of all, North American professional sports leagues, including NBA, are not limited to American sports leagues. As long as they think it is profitable and conditions permit, they will set up teams in any country and any city. The specific process of the Raptors joining the NBA is as follows: The history of the Raptors joining the NBA can be traced back to1April 23, 993, when the NBA announced that it had received a formal application from PBF (Professional Basketball Law (Plus) Inc). The president of this ambitious group is Bitove, who is the president of Bitove Investment Limited, Canada's leading food service company. (His father, John Bitove Sr, tried to join the last NBA expansion. ) PBF Group also includes Allan Slaight of Standard Broadcasting Co., Ltd., Borden Osmak, Vice President of Nova Scotia Bank, Phil Granovsky of Atlantic Packaging Co., Ltd., and David Peterson, former vice governor of Ontario and then chairman of the group. Initially, Bitove and Slaight each held 44% of the shares, with the Bank accounting for 65,438+00%, Granovsky and Peterson each accounting for 65,438+0%. When isiah thomas, the current star of Detroit Pistons, joined, he got 5% shares of Bitowey and Slater. Thomas later became the vice president of the club and acted as the decider of the player list. The NBA chose Toronto as its expansion destination for two reasons: first, it marked the first time that the NBA crossed the national border; Secondly, PBF is the only one of the three bidding organizations located in Toronto. In the expansion before NBA, there was competition among cities, but it was never so fierce. This is a bit confusing, but Toronto is willing and able to support an NBA team. 1989 and 1992, the NBA held two exhibition games in Toronto Sky Stadium, and more than 25,000 fans came to watch the games. The door of NBA to Canada was opened by Palestra Group the year before last. The owner of the group is Toronto road tycoon Larry Tanenbaum. Royal Canadian Commercial Bank and Labatt Brewery have joined the group, and they are both fund partners of toronto blue jays. When Palestra refused to provide an application fee of $65,438+000,000, the NBA did not consider expansion, but the potential of the Canadian market was unstoppable. Bill Ballard, the manager of the rock concert, also joined the bidding process, and Michael Cohl and magician Irwin "Magic" Johnson supported by the Toronto Metro also joined his camp. 1In July, 1993, the organizing committee for NBA expansion led by Sun boss Jerry Colangelo came to Toronto to meet with the bidding team and inspect their plans and venue planning. PBF is favored by the organizing Committee because it is located in the urban area: it is located along the subway, which is convenient for Toronto citizens to arrive in cold weather. And close to the financial district of the city, this convenient condition can attract many businesses to buy office areas one after another. The venue planning of other bidding groups is not so close to the city center. The final venue plan touched the organizing committee of the NBA expansion, and they recommended PBF to have the right to own the 28th team in the league on September 30th, 65438 1995-96. On June 4th, 165438+NBA managers signed their decision, setting a new record for expansion expenses-65438+25 million dollars, which is about four times of the last expansion expenses. The organizing committee agreed that the Raptors' own stadium is under construction, that is, for their first two seasons, the main venue will be Tianqiong Gymnasium. However, the fighting is not over yet. Due to gambling activities in Ontario, the alliance agreement may be cancelled. Pro-Line allows gamblers to bet on the results of NBA games. The alliance's long-standing opposition to this activity has encountered difficulties: Ontario is unwilling to cancel this activity, which can increase their national treasury by 1 billion dollars, and part of this money is earmarked for hospital construction. It took the trade union, PBF and Ontario three months to settle the dispute in sensitive negotiations. Ontario finally believes that the establishment of the new NBA team will increase the local economy's tax revenue by 8,654,380,000 US dollars in the first year due to the employment opportunities of subways, tourists and 4,000 buildings and related facilities. In order to make up for the decline caused by gambling, the club organized many youth and social activities. For NBA, they are eager to gain market in Toronto and keep good relations with new sponsors. These sponsors donated $6,543.8+$5,000 for medical research, donated $2 million to promote the development of tourism in Ontario, founded a charity fund with the Raptors, and agreed to hold the 654.38+0995 draft in Toronto. After all these things, PBF can finally sit down and seriously deal with some issues of creating a team. A competition called "naming game" was held all over the country, which included naming the team, determining the team color and designing the team logo. The "name game" has become one of the most popular activities in the history of the league, and * * * has received more than 2,000 names. In the end, the top ten are all monopolized by animal names: beaver, bobcat, dragon, grizzly bear and wild boar (Toronto's nickname is wild boar city. . . . Sweat)