The fan demographic and the noise level is a lot different at the Air Canada Centre when the Toronto Raptors play, compared to when the Toronto Maple Leafs play.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
The incessant din at Air Canada Centre was hovering between the rumble of a subway train and the squeal of a diesel-truck engine.
And that was before a recent NBA game between the Toronto Raptors and the Brooklyn Nets had started, when the spectators were rocking out to pregame hip-hop and rap music.
When the lights in the arena dimmed and the Raptors' pregame video started rolling on the giant TV screens above centre court, it was the signal for ACC veterans to grab the earplugs in preparation for the oncoming audio assault.
"Basketball fans," Herbie Kuhn, the long-serving, leather-lunged basketball public-address announcer, roared into the microphone, as he began his familiar refrain,
"Please welcome the starters for your Toronto Raptors."
As pyrotechnics erupted from both ends of the court, the music continued to thump and the capacity crowd of close to 20,000 cheered incessantly as their heroes were introduced.
And the racket rarely diminished over the 2 1/2 hours it took for the actual game to be played.
It's loud, over the top and definitely not for the faint of heart. And the Toronto basketball fans, a younger and more ethnically diverse gathering than what you usually see at a Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game, obviously lap it up.
The Raptors have recorded 107 consecutive home sellouts, dating to November of 2014. And on this night, although the basketball team enjoyed another lopsided win, many of the fans remained engaged, still bopping in their seats, until the final buzzer sounded.
"Our fans come here, they enjoy the game," Shannon Hosford said during a recent interview. "Our job is to give them the ultimate NBA experience. But it's by design.
"We want to take those fans on a ride and we want them to be a part of every part of that show, never be bored, always thinking about what's coming up next."
Hosford is the vice-president of marketing and communications at Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, the well-heeled owners of the Raptors, hockey's Maple Leafs and soccer's Toronto FC.
Whatever entertainment occurs aside from the game, Hosford and her team of about 120 are responsible for dreaming it up.
Hosford would be the first to admit that what passes for in-stadium entertainment during a Raptors basketball game would probably have patrons streaming for the exits if they tried to replicate the production at a Leafs game.
And probably vice-versa.
Put it this way. You'll never hear a Stompin' Tom Connors tune during a Raptors' game.
You are more likely to hear snippets of The Sweet Escape by Gwen Stefani, Drake's Hotline Bling and the truly inane Cha Cha Slide by DJ Casper, which contains the "everybody clap your hands" plea.
Those are some of the songs that the Raptors sent to the NBA for vetting and are on the team's play list for home games this season.
"I do think the point is, we as an organization never try to cookie-cutter from one brand experience to another brand experience," Hosford said. "We've very conscious of what we've been told, the feedback we've heard, the surveys that we get, in terms of what's working with one team and one brand to another."
The Raptors, like the other 29 NBA clubs, receive direction from the NBA front office on in-house entertainment.
"Our teams are always looking for new and different ways to create an exciting entertainment experience for fans of all ages at each and every game that exceeds their expectations," Mike Chant, an NBA senior director of team programming, said in an e-mail. "The teams have the best understanding of what their fans like and take the lead on arranging programming that best suits their fan base."
Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't – at which point the league will not hesitate to step in.
Back in 1999, when former Raptor Marcus Camby was making his first return to Toronto following a trade to the New York Knicks, a tape of a baby wailing was piped over the PA system when he first entered the game.
Later in the game, when Latrell Sprewell of the Knicks was lining up to shoot a free throw, the message "CHOKE" was flashed on the video board.
For those indiscretions the league slapped the Raptors with a $10,000 fine.
John Lashway was one of the Raptors' first front-office hires in the communications department when the team started out in 1995 and played its first 2 1/2 seasons in the cavernous Rogers Centre, then known as the SkyDome, until the ACC opened.
Back then, Lashway said, basketball fans in Toronto had to learn about game protocols.
He recalled one occasion at the SkyDome when fans seated behind the basket were given inflatable noisemakers, which they were supposed to wave and beat together to distract the opposition when taking free throws.
Except the fans also beat the sticks when the Raptors were shooting. Definitely not cool.
"But Toronto was a quick study," added Lashway, who now runs his own communications and branding company out of St. Catharines, Ont. "Toronto is still louder and crazier for the Raptors than any arena I go to."
These days, attending a Raptors game, or any NBA game for that matter, is an experience of sensory overload that includes blaring music, scantily-clad dancers, video montages and silly antics from the mascot.
And it is loud – so much so that at least one former club executive believes he lost a bit of hearing in one of his ears as a result of the excessive noise.
Dr. Blake Papsin is the chief of otolaryngology, head and neck surgery, at Toronto's Hospital For Sick Children. He said while he finds the ramped-up sound at hockey and basketball games personally annoying, the noise will probably not damage hearing.
"I'm old enough to remember when you wore a suit to Leaf games and clapped even when the other team did something good," Papsin said. "But you could hear the puck. Nowadays everything's become noisy."
Those who long for the days when you could actually hear the squeak of sneakers on the hardwood during basketball games are apparently in the minority.
"They are undervaluing the ability of fans just being able to listen and watch NBA games to draw in new fans, thinking they have to change everything," said lifelong NBA fan John Thayer, a 36-year-old legal assistant who lives in Los Angeles. "Then they add all this music and these noises that any third-rate bar mitzvah DJ has at his disposal."
Hosford said the demographics for Raptors games points to a younger crowd than you would see at a Leafs game – between 18 to 35 and many of them women.
"The crowd at basketball games, it's really representative of Toronto," Hosford said. "It's culturally diverse, it's very young – a lot younger than our other teams. So you will see that in the production of our show.
"When we talk about being on trend, lifestyle trends and all that – that's what our fan is looking [for from] us, to be on that edge."
Anton Wright, director of game presentation for MLSE, said the idea is to augment what he referred to as the "glitz and glamour" of the play on the court to all the off-court activities.
"The idea is to pack as much as possible and engage our fan as much as possible within that 2 1/2-hour time frame," he said. "So you see through our talent and through our music and our mascot and everything else.
"It's really having that story and having a beginning, a middle and an end. And you're always going to see that at a Raptors game."
Hosford said that she rarely gets any push back from basketball fans about the noise. She said the noise levels are monitored every game and normally fall within the NBA's guidelines.
"We get called [by the NBA] if we're over the levels," Hosford said.
Has she had many calls? "A smattering" over the years.
"Our job is to get our fans involved, engaged and excited, to give the team an advantage," she said.
At the end of a Raptors game at the ACC, when all the commotion has finally died out, Kuhn grabs the microphone one last time to bid farewell to the fans.
"And peace" he concludes – and it truly is.