Straight Guy for the Queer Eye

nbadraft.net predicts the Toronto Raptors picking Rudy Gay with their likely #5 pick. This might be mutually beneficial to all parties if you think about it. Toronto is a socially-progressive city with a vibrant gay community. It’s totally legal for same-sex couples to get married like any other couple in Canada, which isn’t the case in the States. So what does this mean for Rudy? Massive jersey sales for one.

How many times have you heard the joke that Randall Gay possesses the slowest selling jersey in the NFL. The thing is, Randall isn’t one of the top players at his position, so it doesn’t really matter. Now, Rudy Gay has all the potential to be a great professional player, but his last name really could limit his jersey sales in somewhere more conservative. Put him in Toronto though, and he could be embraced like no one else.

The Raptors could certainly use another marketable player. Their only asset at the moment is Chris Bosh. Locally, you have a lot of support for a couple guys like the goofy Matt Bonner, and the suddenly dependable (and in my opinion, highly underrated) Morris Peterson. However, these guys don’t really have any particular appeal to any given demographic except for the not so important nerdy-looking redhead and basketball players allegedly with herpes segments. Rudy Gay could reach out to the relatively untapped homosexual market.

He could star in a new marketing push in the city. Attendance at games has been quite dismal the past couple years. This is somewhat surprising since hockey was locked out for a year, which should have allowed basketball to make inroads in the city. Of course the team traded away Vince Carter and anyone who follows the NBA knows how that turned out. This is a great chance to make things right and bring in a great deal of new fans.

Of course, this is all based on the huge assumption that one man’s surname happening to coincide with an adjective for someone’s sexual orientation is some sort of great connection, which it could very well not be. In fact, the whole idea might be so ridiculous that it could backfire in the face of the entire organization. Then again, the Raptors did trade Vince Carter for basically nothing. What has Toronto got to lose? (Certainly not more games).