Kansas City wants the Raptors
With the 2020 National Basketball Association season behind us and the Los Angeles Lakers being crowned champions, teams, and players have already begun to look towards next season. The NBA is looking at playing games in home markets again, much like Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and Major League Soccer. All those leagues also have one thing in common – all games are being played in the United States of America.
Neither the Toronto Blue Jays nor Toronto FC have been allowed to return to Toronto and play games against American teams inside of Canada. MLS did find a solution that allowed their Canadian teams to play against each other in Canada but had to re-locate all three sides once they started playing matches against American clubs again.
With the boarder remaining closed, the Canadian federal government has been adamant about not allowing American clubs to travel in and out of the country. As a result, the Toronto Raptors are already starting to look at potential options for them next season if they can’t play at Scotiabank Arena.
According to a recent interview with TSN Radio 1040, Kansas City mayor Quinton Lucas is putting his city’s name in the running to host home games for the 2019 NBA champions.
“On the whole, everybody I think understands the situation. And, you know, I think they get that if it comes to a need that the Raptors play in the United States, then you might as well pick a place that is a new market, provides some new opportunity, has other large cities close to it that also don’t have the NBA, like St. Louis for example,” Lucas said, via TSN. I think it could be a very nice short relationship,” Lucas said.
“Everybody knows we’re not trying to steal the Raptors. There is no way we could ever do that. The Toronto area has millions more people than we do. But this is more of a thing of hey, let’s just see if we can show our best and put our best foot forward and be a good host for the Raptors for a little while.”
Playing their home games in Louisville and Buffalo has come up in recent discussions, but Lucas believes his city would be a better choice than both those places for a variety of different reasons.
“I’ll actually just be completely honest. We saw rumours that Louisville was mentioned and Buffalo. I mean no disrespect to those two cities, but I thought, you know, we’re a major-league city. I’ve been to both of those places. They’re nice, but we’re a larger market. We’re a growing market.”
Kansas City did once have an NBA franchise back in 1972, but the Kansas City Kings eventually moved to Sacramento in 1985 and the city hasn’t had a team since. It remains to be seen whether the Raptors will end up in Kansas City, but they must feel comforted by the fact they are wanted. Ideally for the Raptors though, they will be allowed to return home and play games north of the border.
