Celebrity association with sports teams comes with no guarantees, for either party.
Where the Toronto Raptors’ run with Drake leads no one knows, but it’s been pretty fun so far — and not just because the musician famously got caught on camera using a lint roller court side during the NBA playoffs, and came back with a lint roller giveaway the next home game.
Wednesday night was the second annual (for now) Drake Night, where the Toronto-based hip-hop star does the pre-game introductions (who knew that Jonas Valanciunas’s nickname is Big Science?) and fans get free OVO-brand Raptors t-shirts before they are sold for outrageous markups on the Internet.
In town were the Brooklyn Nets, who have been anything but transformed by their relationship with hip-hop icon Jay Z. And doesn’t Nelly own part of the Charlotte Hornets?
So the results are mixed at best.
Still, the Drake-Raptors relationship seems like a positive thing, and likely will remain so as long their respective stars remain in ascendance — never a certainty in music or sports.
The former Degrassi star certainly sounds like he’s enjoying himself. Even with MLSE president Tim Leiweke – who helped bring Drake into the franchise as the Raptors Global Ambassador with an eye toward making a splash at the 2016 NBA All-Star Game – on the way out, it doesn’t sound like Drake’s association with the team comes with an end date in mind.
“Tim has been a great boss and a great mentor, but I’ve been in the city for 28 years,” said Drake, who held court before the game. “All respect to Tim, but with or without Tim the focus has always been about Toronto and the Raptors, not about who’s here. It’s a blessing for Tim to give me the opportunity, prior to that I had to work my career up to be able to get there, for someone to notice me enough to give me the opportunity, but I really do commend Tim for being brave enough to give me a shot … my goal is to stay with the Raptors as long as they’ll have me.”
Could Drake see himself trying to gain an ownership stake at some point in the future?
He didn’t say no, but it doesn’t sound like a strategy at the moment, even if he did have the cash for the smallest sliver of MLSE, which is likely approaching the $3-billion mark in market value.
“I feed off the energy with the team,” said Drake, who looked none the worse for wear after his alleged scuffle with Diddy a few days ago. “These guys are my friends and this city is my city, so I’m not really looking to monetize or capitalize my involvement. I’m just here strictly for support and to be more unified.”
In the meantime Drake sounds content to engineer the franchise’s rebranding effort in advance of next season when the Raptors finally host the All-Star Game.
“I think people are going to be floored with what we have in store for next season,” he said. “I’ve got great things for people … that will adorn your body as you move through life. …. It’s going really well. It’s definitely a full re-brand. It’s going to be shocking.”
Does Drake otherwise have an impact? Impossible to measure, of course. His clumsy effort to woo free-agent-to-be Kevin Durant from the stage at OVO Fest last summer only earned MLSE a tampering fine, but if his cache opens a door or two with future high profile free agents it will be further than the Raptors have got in summers past.
Raptors head coach Dwane Casey often shares the sideline with the singer when Drake is in his courtside seats, and he’s a supporter of the franchise’s most famous fan.
“I get texts: ‘Do you know Drake, have you met Drake?’ I’m like ‘yeah, he sits there every night and hears me cuss out the referees.’ He knows all my cuss words,” said Casey. “But it’s about passion, our fans and it’s going to help us down the road when we talk to free agents.”
Said Drake: “Honestly, I pretty much sit right beside him and I can’t understand a word he’s saying, so I don’t know how the players even know what to do. It all sounds like random words that come to his mind. It could be like, “A-1 sauce.”
Of course, having a former child actor as a celebrity fan means some rather awkward insights into what has gone into the Raptors surprising resurgence of the past calendar year, which Drake said reminded him of his days on set.
“It’s a tough comparison but being part of an ensemble cast it involves the meshing of all personalities and I can testify because I was on DeGrassi and there were 12 kids having to co-exist and everyone wanted to be a star and everyone had dreams of doing this and that and the third, but once you have a common goal, as opposed to a personal goal that’s when things really start to click and that’s what the Raptors have this year. There’s a real family vibe going on in the locker room, outside, at the games. They love each other, they care about each other and they want to win and it shows in their record.”