Did the WNBA accidentally leak Toronto’s team name, Tempo?
When the WNBA announced that Toronto would be awarded the league’s 14th franchise back in May, one of the immediate conversations that got started was about potential team names.
And while the organization has remained tight-lipped about its much-anticipated moniker — previously confirming an official announcement was planned for early 2025 — the WNBA may have accidentally spilled the beans prematurely.
On Tuesday, fans noticed “Toronto Tempo” had been added to multiple drop-down menus on the league’s website, mixed in between the other 13 WNBA teams. It has since been removed.
The organization has made fan input a point of emphasis through the initial brand ideation process, even taking suggestions from the community via nameyourteam.ca and receiving over 5,000 submissions.
MLSE chairman and CEO Kilmer Sports Ventures Larry Tanenbaum, the group behind WNBA Toronto’s ownership, along with president of basketball operations Teresa Resch have also made it clear how important picking the right name would be. Resch, a former executive with the Toronto Raptors, said it was her first order of business as soon as she stepped into the new role.
“We need an identity, a logo … a name that people can rally round,” Resch said in a September interview with MacLean’s.
It didn’t take long for fans to make themselves heard once news got around of the potential name. And “rally around” may not have been the best way to describe the wide variance of reactions.
Some were surprised and even disappointed by the name after the organization had previously shut down other popular options such as “Towers” or “Flurry” in its Cutting Room Floor series. At the very least, Tempo wasn’t considered a top contender by most and doesn’t appear to have any obvious ties to the league’s soon-to-be lone Canadian franchise.
Meanwhile, other fans warmed up to the nickname, at least enough to reserve judgement until other elements like official colours and a logo were announced. And in fairness, it’s not hard to see why a name like Tempo could be a realistic possibility for Toronto’s WNBA franchise.
The definition of tempo is: the rate or speed of motion. In the musical sense, it’s defined as: the speed at which a passage of music is or should be played. High-paced action and playing with speed on a basketball court is a tantalizing idea, in a vacuum, even if it may not be someone’s first choice for a team name.
There’s also the fact that the WNBA has always tried to push the envelope with its franchises’ monikers. For starters, names like Liberty, Mercury, Fever, Sun, Sky, Storm and Dream as non-plural entities are plenty unique. Meanwhile, the league only has two teams with any animal association, the Wings and Lynx, another deviation from traditional sports nicknames. (Sorry to those who wanted Huskies for Toronto, but that seemed like a long shot.)
In that sense, Tempo fits right into the WNBA’s atypical sphere of names. The Golden State franchise, set to join the league in 2025, was named the Valkyries. So clearly, just about anything goes.
There’s also a third section of basketball fans who are either making jokes that the team’s mascot should be a Ford Tempo, a car manufactured between 1984-94, or theorizing that tempo was actually short for “temporary” and it was merely on the league’s website as a placeholder.
Meanwhile, SportsLogo.net added to the slew of news, claiming to have received a first look at the Toronto Tempo’s supposed logo through an anonymous league source.
The reported logo shows the letter “T” on a basketball with speed lines trailing behind. White and light blue are the primary colours. As noted by Sports Logo, the design holds similarities to the NBA’s Indiana Pacers and the Ontario Hockey League.
Only time will tell if any of that is true and if the WNBA truly leaked the name of its 14th franchise.
Toronto is set to begin competition in 2026 as part of the WNBA’s expansion plans alongside Portland, returning to the league as the 15th franchise.
The post Did the WNBA accidentally leak Toronto’s team name, Tempo? first appeared on Raptors Republic.