From the unveiling of the Toronto Tempo first thing Thursday morning to her interview with CBC Sports earlier this afternoon, Teresa Resch’s media appearances have been non-stop.

Despite all of that, Resch was still bursting with excitement about the Tempo being introduced as the city’s new WNBA team. The franchise will play its first game in May 2026.

“I don’t mind repeating myself about a brand new team name, identity, colors and logos. You can talk about it over and over again all day, every day. “I actually hope that people talk about this over and over again for years to come,” Resch said.

Resch was stationed at Makeway, a women’s sneaker store in Toronto, wearing a letterman jacket with a team logo and holding court with several locations Thursday after the WNBA team unveiled its nickname and logos earlier in the day.

But the long-awaited release wasn’t meant to happen like this – not necessarily.

VIEW | Resch explains how Toronto chose the nickname “Tempo”:

The president of Canada’s first WNBA franchise explains the meaning of the Tempo nickname

Teresa Resch says the team went through more than 10,000 submissions before coming to a decision.

The team had planned to publicly reveal its identity on January 14th. When Tempo was leaked as a nickname in a drop-down menu on the league’s website late Tuesday night, everything changed.

But what may have seemed rushed from the outside was anything but for Resch and her team.

In fact, flexibility embodies the name Tempo itself.

In fact, basketball is a game of reflexes and reactions.

“It’s sport – nothing ever goes as planned, right? You just go with the flow and everything happens for a reason. So we had a plan to launch and we’re really excited to hit go. And we feel like we’ve made it well received,” Resch said.

Anecdotally, reaction to the Tempo moniker has been mixed – which can’t have been a surprise to team leadership, considering the teams’ recent inclusion with the PWHL, the WNBA’s Golden State Valkyries and the NWSL’s BOS Nation FC became.

“If they could get half the audience to love it immediately, that would be a landslide victory. But at some point people will like the name or the colors or not,” said John Lashway, a communications executive who helped found the Raptors. told CBC Sports in November.

Collaborative branding process

The WNBA Toronto team has been open about its branding process throughout, with regular social media updates on eliminated names — like the Towers, Traffic and 6ixers — and a team-produced podcast that went behind the scenes of the journey.

There was also a “Name Your Team” campaign that collected over 10,000 entries – including Tempo.

“We had over a thousand unique names to consider. “And we also tried to invent our own and incorporate things that haven’t been submitted yet, but in the end, Tempo really came out on top and we’re really excited to be able to unveil it today,” Resch said.

“A local councilor gave us various feedback, and we ended up even doing a design call-all for all creatives and hiring three people to support us in the process. So it was really a group effort.”

VIEW | Toronto franchise calls for inspiration to look for a nickname:

Toronto’s WNBA team needs fans’ help in developing a new name and logo

The Women’s National Basketball Association’s expansion team in Toronto has issued a “Call for Inspiration,” asking fans across Canada to help choose the team’s name and look. CBC’s Greg Ross spoke with Toronto residents who shared some of their ideas.

The Tempo logo consists of six moving lines, which the team says represent Toronto’s six wards, two common area codes (416 and 647) and five players on the field and a sixth in the fans.

Its colors, as described by Nike, are hydrogen blue and burgundy.

“It’s kind of a modern twist on the color palette that exists in the Toronto sports scene. There’s the very royal blue, there’s also the very strong red, and this is just a version of that, but our own style. So.” “We’re really excited,” Resch said.

“It feels unique to us, but also a great asset to the teams that are our colleagues, both in the city and in the league.”

Now that Resch is president, the next step for the franchise is to build the team itself.

The focus shifts to roster creation

Although implementation is still 18 months away, building the roster begins with the hiring of a general manager, Resch said, a position she hopes to fill in early 2025.

The Golden State Valkyries’ expansion draft will take place on Friday – meaning Toronto could be just 12 months away from having faces for the team.

Resch said she will be watching “very closely” and is in constant contact with Golden State, which will play next season, and Portland, which is expected to join Tempo.

VIEW | WNBA officially announces Toronto’s expansion franchise:

WNBA officially announces Toronto team

With VIPs in attendance from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Drake, the WNBA finally made it official, announcing that Toronto will have a team playing in the women’s professional basketball league starting in 2026.

“We talk to them and really to all the teams, directly to all the presidents. They just welcomed us and just helped us because they know the more success we have, the more successful the entire league is,” Resch said.

Meanwhile, Resch said some of the next milestones on the branding side will include merchandise, tickets and announcements for games that will take place outside of Toronto in Canada.

Resch was with the Raptors in 2014 when the team launched its heralded “We The North” campaign months earlier than planned due to the team’s surprising success.

She also helped bring the G League’s Raptors 905 to life.

Although she has experience launching basketball brands, she said that for the most part, Tempo felt completely different — except for one aspect.

“We capture lightning in a bottle, right? As if there was a certain movement, the feeling. All the stars align. And like I said, everything happens for a reason and at the right time,” Resch said.

“And the right time for Toronto Tempo to enter the world was December 5, 2024, and we are really excited to be here today.”