Toronto Tempo unveiled as handle for new WNBA team as leak accelerates unveiling

Canada's new WNBA franchise will be called the Toronto Tempo, a handle officially unveiled with some haste Thursday morning after it was leaked the previous day.

The name appeared — briefly — on a team drop-down menu on the league's official website.

Team president Teresa Resch took it all in stride.

"Well, nothing ever goes as planned," she said in an interview. "But yeah, we would have loved to have our merchandise ready and be able to roll that all out at once. But we're still really excited to share the name and logo and colours."

The logo shows a light-blue basketball emblazoned with a T and leaving a trail, as if in motion. Resch said the team colours will be blue and red, calling it "a modern take on a very familiar Canadian colour palette."

The women's league will grow to 13 teams in 2025 with the addition of the Golden Golden State Valkyries. Toronto and Portland join the party in 2026.

Toronto issued a “call for inspiration” in August, asking fans from across Canada to "share ideas, hopes and suggestions" for everything from the team's name to its colours and identity.

A group of designers and advisers then reviewed the contributions to develop a shortlist of options, subject to a full legal review, including a trademark search. The final name was chosen by team and league leadership.

Resch said the name was chosen from more than 10,000 submissions with "multiple Canadians" offering up Tempo.

"It's really the first team name to talk about the game itself," she said. "Tempo is not about going fast or slow, it's about control. And truly, as Canadians, we're not playing your game, we're defining ours through that control."

Tempo also relates to the in-game experience, from the pace of the game to the pulse of the music, said Resch.

Not to mention that it works both in English and French.

"We really plan to be a team for all Canadians," she said.

Perhaps a little optimistically, the team says its name "was chosen to reflect the rhythm and pace of both our nation and the game of basketball."

Toronto was awarded a WNBA team in May, becoming the league’s first franchise outside the U.S. The new team will be owned and operated by Kilmer Sports Ventures, which reportedly paid US$115 million for the WNBA team.

Kilmer's chairman is Larry Tanenbaum, who doubles as chair of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, which owns the NBA Raptors, NHL Maple Leafs and AHL Marlies, MLS’s Toronto FC, and CFL's Argonauts.

Tanenbaum was also responsible for helping bring the NBA to Toronto, with the Raptors joining the league 30 years ago.

The WNBA team will primarily play out of the 8,700-seat Coca-Cola Coliseum, home to the AHL Marlies, with the 19,800-seat Scotiabank Arena also an option. But Tanenbaum has said the team will play home games elsewhere in Canada, to help showcase the WNBA and help grow women's basketball.

Resch spent the last 10 years with the Raptors, helping to design and build the NBA team's practice facility, the OVO Athletic Centre, and launching the Raptors 905, Toronto’s NBA G-League affiliate based in Mississauga, Ont.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 5, 2024