It's time for the Raptors to move on from their "We The North" slogan

While he’s no longer part of the Toronto Raptors, Fred VanVleet spoke prophetically during his last public media appearance with the team.

On the heels of a disappointing season that saw the team fail to qualify for the playoffs after losing in a play-in game to the Chicago Bulls on their home court, VanVleet spoke to the media for more than 30 minutes about the team’s season, his future, and why the team seemed to be stuck in the mud after a promising 48-win campaign in 2021-22.

“We’ve got to find another identity,” VanVleet said on April 13. “We can’t try to carry it over by osmosis from a championship we won four years ago.”

It seems like VanVleet was talking about the team’s on-court play style predicated on generating a slew of more possessions than the other team, a strategy that often fell flat in 2022-23 due to the team’s tough half-court offence and poor shooting performance.

The team did, in fact, find a new identity — replacing head coach Nick Nurse with Darko Rajaković, while VanVleet himself signed a shiny new contract with the Houston Rockets, leaving the only NBA franchise he’s ever known.

But off the court, it should be time to move on from one of the most iconic slogans in North American sport and create a new brand identity for the team.

While the Raptors saw their greatest successes come under their “We The North” branding, the team hasn’t been at its best for years now.

I’m not a marketing expert, but it seems like nine years might be time to phase out the popular slogan in favour of a new look.

History of the Raptors’ “We The North” slogan

Unlike college sports, where slogans are often over 100 years old and occasionally a greeting from alumni to another, “We the North” is something that’s hardly even passed a decade.

“The Raptors embraced their outsider status and went all in,” writes marketing firm Sid Lee, who helped create the now-iconic brand. “And it took hold. From 2014 on, We The North was the rallying cry that allowed the Raptors and their local fans to take pride in their Canadian identity.”

The idea behind “We The North” was pretty simple: despite being based in Toronto, the Raptors have a fanbase all across Canada.

Coupled with team president Masai Ujiri’s infamous “F*ck Brooklyn” call ahead of the Raptors’ first playoff game in 2014, the country’s lone NBA team began to embrace its identity of being just a little above their American neighbours.

It’s obviously paid off, as the team has become the most valuable pro sports franchise in Canada, and the team’s 2019 championship run felt like the culmination of years of fighting for validation.

“We The North” is an iconic three words in Raptors history and symbolizes an era that anyone who was around will never forget.

And yet, doesn’t it feel a little dated every time you see it?

The team has won just one playoff round since 2019, and just three players from the championship roster remain, with Pascal Siakam the lone starter from that team still on the roster.

“We the North” was a fun unifying factor for the time the Raptors were still fighting for respect and accolades throughout the league, but it seems like it might be time to move on from it.

Keep it organic

So what should the Raptors do if they phase out the “We the North” branding?

The first idea, broadly, is “nothing.”

Two of the most iconic Raptors slogans from their 2019 playoff run both centred around quotes from Kawhi Leonard: “I’m a fun guy” and “Board Man Gets Paid.”

Both became meme fodder overnight: the former from his first appearance at media day, the latter from an article that dropped during the 2019 playoffs.

Raptors fans are pretty clever themselves, and they’re already a massive audience, evidenced in no small part by the historic championship parade in 2019. As much as MLSE would love to keep growing the fanbase larger and wider, it seems there are only so many more people across the country to reach.

And with the team not expected to accomplish all that much this season. Fans will still be attending games even if the on-court performance isn’t quite there, with Toronto having the fourth-best attendance in the league last year.

If someone dreams up a great branding idea in a board meeting, great.

But for the same reasons, “We The North” was such a brilliant slogan; sometimes, it’s okay to just exist without a forced slogan.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have been using the “Honour. Pride. Courage.” mantra for years on the necks of their jerseys and throughout the arena, while the Toronto Blue Jays have tried everything from “Heart and Hustle” to “Let’s Rise” to “Next Level” to try to represent their own team identity.

Few fans seem to take these rallying cries seriously, but it hasn’t hampered their enjoyment of the actual product.

If Scottie Barnes throws out a hilarious quote Raptors fans keep repeating, sure, print the T-shirts up and toss them on the side of the arena.

But for now, it’s okay to just put “We The North” to the side for a while and bring it back as a throwback look in a few years if the team begins their pushes to the postseason once again.

The Raptors have bigger issues to deal with than a slogan, but maybe it’ll at least help to freshen things up a bit if they put it away for a while.

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