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<\/p>\nVancouver continues to prove, time and time again, that this city loves the NBA.<\/p>\n
A sold-out crowd of 18,654 enthusiastic basketball fans packed Rogers Arena on Monday for an NBA preseason game between the Toronto Raptors and Denver Nuggets.<\/p>\n
Of course they did, because this is nothing new.<\/p>\n
The NBA plays to sold-out crowds in Vancouver on the regular.<\/p>\n
The Raptors have started their preseason with a game in Vancouver seven times: in 2010, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2023, and 2025. Each time, over 18,000 fans have crammed into Rogers Arena.<\/p>\n
The cheapest resale ticket prices on game day were listed for over $200 this year.<\/p>\n
You\u2019d think the enthusiasm would dampen, but it hasn\u2019t.\u00a0Because they never feel like preseason games.<\/p>\n
On Monday, fans arrived early to mob the player entrances in an attempt to get an autograph, photo, or even just a glimpse of their basketball heroes \u2014 whether they be players like R.J. Barrett or Scottie Barnes from the Raptors, or Jamal Murray or Nikola Joki\u0107 from the Nuggets.<\/p>\n
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Brandon Ingram stops to sign autographs for fans in Vancouver (Mary Kessenich\/Daily Hive)<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been over 24 years since the Vancouver Grizzlies left for Memphis, but there\u2019s a whole generation of fans who are too young to remember the NBA\u2019s six-year run in the city.<\/p>\n
And there were plenty of 20-somethings in the crowd.<\/p>\n
Many of them have grown up as diehard Raptors fans.<\/p>\n
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Sold-out crowd (Mary Kessenich\/Daily Hive)<\/p>\n
\u201cWe feel a lot of love. We feel that the whole city is behind the team,\u201d Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovi\u0107 said of the Vancouver crowd. \u201cWe were in the locker room before the start of the game\u2026 it was already so loud inside [the arena], and so many fans inside.\u201d<\/p>\n
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This was a pro-Raptors crowd (Mary Kessenich\/Daily Hive)<\/p>\n
Some will claim that Vancouver is merely an \u201cevent town,\u201d and that there isn\u2019t the fan support in the city to warrant a second major pro sports team outside of the Vancouver Canucks.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019m not sure what else basketball fans in Vancouver can do.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe atmosphere was great,\u201d added Raptors forward R.J. Barrett. \u201cSo happy that we got to be able to come here this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Grizzlies\u2019 time in the city is now ancient history.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, so is the $125-million expansion fee that Arthur Griffiths paid to bring an NBA team to Vancouver in the 1990s.<\/p>\n
The least valuable franchise in the NBA, which is ironically the Memphis Grizzlies, according to CNBC\u2019s 2025 valuation<\/a>, is now worth $3.2 billion.<\/p>\n That\u2019s probably too rich for even the Aquilini family.<\/p>\n