The president of Toronto Tempo, Teresa Resch, has a guarantee: her team will have t -shirts in time to notify the next season.
“That is what I can compromise 100 percent. Anything else, I would be lying,” said Resch in a recent conversation with CBC Sports.
However, as the preparations for the first team of the Canada WNBA intensify with one year until their debut, resch and their growing team have already had to make their order for merchandise on the court: practice team, bank clothing, training clothing and the like.
Even without a sweater design.
“We have no idea who our coach will be, or any of our players. The deadlines do not change for us. So we had to place that order,” said Resch.
The 2025 WNBA season begins on May 16. For Toronto, it also serves as an unofficial marker of one year. And although the roots have been planted for the franchise, a president, general manager, nickname and logo of the most notable, there is still much to do before the tempo plays basketball.
To honor the occasion, the team will celebrate what is invoicing as its first live event: an encounter and greetings in the center of Toronto, from May 24 to 25. There are plans to celebrate similar public events throughout Canada throughout the season.
In a year from now on, however, there will be basketball to play.
Resch said that he has not yet received any indication of the League about how the expansion draft could be seen when the tempo enters with an expansion sister in Portland.
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Nor would it address the collective bargaining agreement, which expires after this season and represents the anvil that could fly the opening season of the tempo.
Regardless of how all that develops, the free agent class will be historical.
“We know there are a lot of players [whose] The contracts will expire at the end of the season and hope to get involved and talk to those players about being potentially in Toronto, “said Resch.
Meanwhile, the GM Monica Wright Rogers has already gone to the road at the University Games and the preseason to explore possible tempo objectives.
Resch said that he has not completely established his own schedule for the season, but that he plans to be in Vancouver for the first WNBA game of the regular season in Canada on August 15, as well as Indiana for the weekend All-Star.
Otherwise, Resch only wants to consume a lot of basketball.
“Obviously we are also exploring, such as understanding what is happening in the League, how the [expansion Golden State] The Valkyries are [doing]Some of the things that work well for them we hope we can implement and also learn from anything that goes sideways, “said Resch.
She also hopes to get knowledge of the court.
“This is really the first season that we will have people dedicated to the tempo so that we can be really focused on those learning. Therefore, there are many things that we can learn from the commercial team. Go to the games, understanding the experiences in sand, as well as in some of the back-end,” said Resch.
“The incredible W is that it is a great community and there are many best shared practices.”
Behind the scene, the Tempo team has grown to 18 people, and things begin to accelerate due to the increase in staff.
The general feeling among the first and a half dozen of the dozen of the tempo? Excitement.
“I mean, think of your own life when you start something new. And there is a lot of emotion because we all feel in something very positive, right? We know that it will not be an easy trip, but we are prepared for the challenge and excited.
The incipient group has helped transform the tempo into an operational business, a final step that a year ago, when Resch and the CFO Patrick Lee were the first hiring of the team.
Still, they are the early stages. The Tempo continues to implement Back-End Commercial software such as CRM and ERP Systems, among other “acronyms that had no idea what they represented six months ago,” she said Resch with a laugh.
The objective is short -term pain for long -term gain.
“We can obtain more information on our fans, we can interact with them in a more personalized way. We can have financial documents that are not so manual so that we can track our progress and make sure we are executing a really excellent business,” said Resch.
In another place, there continues working in LinkedIn to join the tempo, including one for a basketball operations director to work side by side with Wright Rogers.
The team also continues to add to its property group, with the CEO of Xero Sukhinder Singh Cassidy recently joining Larry Tanenbaum and Serena Williams. Resch said that another addition will be announced soon.
And so, slow but safe, things are joining for the tempo, and the group is learning together.
“You are building that strategy from scratch, which is a great opportunity, but it also means that you do not have historical to base it. You have some market research and things throughout the league, but nothing that really happened in your market for your team before,” said Resch.
“So, I mean, those things are simply exciting. You can call them challenges. I think it is only opportunities to leave their mark and establish the tone for what will be an incredibly successful franchise for many years.”
