FOX analyst Chris Broussard slammed for anti-Toronto Raptors take

Jul 4 2022, 6:43 pm

FOX Sports analyst Chris Broussard likely isn’t making new friends in Canada anytime soon.

On a segment about the Toronto Raptors’ chances at landing Kevin Durant, Broussard had plenty of opinions about the team and the city that didn’t exactly land well north of the border.

“Great city, but it’s not America, and you feel it when you’re there,” Chris Broussard said on Monday’s edition of First Things First. “Especially as an African American, it’s a different situation than African Americans are used to being in… I’ve talked to people in that organization pre-Ujiri about can they keep African American superstars there?”

As a white Torontonian, I obviously can’t speak on the Black experience of living in the city.

But it does not seem to line up with what the Raptors have said about the city and playing in Canada.

“We have a great relationship with the city, the franchise, ownership, management,” Fred VanVleet said in an interview with Daily Hive last month. “It’s a match made in heaven for me. I love being a Toronto Raptor.”

“Having the whole country behind your back, being at your side from your ups and downs, through each and every game, [and] supporting you no matter what’s happening. It feels amazing,” Scottie Barnes said on a recent Twitch stream.

And of course, Toronto is made up of a little over half (51.5) visible minorities per the 2016 census and is widely known as one of the world’s most multicultural cities.

Inaccuracies aside, “Pre-Ujiri” was perhaps the strangest part of the rant, though.

Masai Ujiri joined the Raptors organization as their general manager in 2013, after a two-year stint as assistant general manager in 2008-10. Why would the Raptors history from 1995-2013 have anything to do with whether they’d be able to trade for Durant?

Raptors fans had plenty of opinions on the clip.

Broussard did nail one thing, though. Toronto is definitely not America.

ADVERTISEMENT