<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Team among league's top 5 for season ducats; renewal rate tops NBA The Raptors are proving to be as big a hit at the summer box office as they were on the court last season. Showing once again that Toronto basketball fans will clamour to support a winner, the team is enjoying almost unprecedented success in the sales department this month, leading NBA officials to consider it a model franchise. "It's been quite an amazing summer," said Scott O'Neil, the NBA's senior vice-president of team marketing and business operations. "Fans across the NBA have been renewing season tickets at an all-time rate and Toronto's right at the front of that list." The Raptors, coming off a 47-35 season in which they returned to the playoffs for the first time in four years and won the first division title in franchise history, have had about a 98 per cent renewal rate on season tickets. </div> The Toronto Star
I'm not surprised by this at all. I remember the Star did a poll a little while ago and the readers believed that the Raptors were the Toronto team most likely to win a championship. Colangelo dramatic first season has brought a lot of optimism to a strong, but success-starved basketball market.