Toronto Tempo president Teresa Resch has one guarantee: her team will have jerseys in time for tip-off next season.
“That’s what I can 100 per cent commit to. Anything else, I would be lying,” Resch said in a recent conversation with CBC Sports.
Yet as preparations for Canada’s first WNBA team intensify with one year until its debut, Resch and her growing crew have already had to place their order for on-court merchandise — practice gear, bench wear, coaching attire and the like.
Even without a jersey design.
“We don’t have any idea who our coach is going to be, or any of our players. The deadlines don’t change for us. So we had to place that order,” Resch said.
The 2025 WNBA season begins May 16. For Toronto, it also serves as the unofficial one year out marker. And while roots have been planted for the franchise — a president, general manager, nickname and logo being the most notable — there’s still plenty left to do before the Tempo play basketball.
To honour the occasion, the team will hold what it is billing as its first live event — a meet and greet in downtown Toronto May 24-25. There are plans to hold similar public events across Canada throughout the season.
In a year from now, however, there will be basketball to be played.
Resch said she has still not yet received any indication from the league on what the expansion draft might look like when the Tempo enter alongside an expansion sister in Portland.
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She also wouldn’t address the collective bargaining agreement, which expires after this season and represents the one anvil that could blow up the Tempo’s inaugural season.
Regardless of how that all plays out, the free-agent class is set to be historic.
“We know that there is a very large number of players [whose] the contracts will expire at end of the season and we look forward to engaging with and talking to those players about potentially being in Toronto,” Resch said.
In the meantime, GM Monica Wright Rogers has already hit the road at college and pre-season games to scout potential Tempo targets.
Resch said she hasn’t fully set her own schedule for the season, but she plans to be in Vancouver for the first-ever regular-season WNBA game in Canada on Aug. 15 as well as Indiana for all-star weekend.
Otherwise, Resch just wants to consume lots of basketball.
“Obviously we’re scouting as well, like understanding what’s happening in the league, how the [expansion Golden State] Valkyries are [doing], some of the things that are working well for them hopefully we can implement ourselves and also learn from anything that kind of goes sideways,” Resch said.
She also hopes to gain knowledge off the court.
“This is really the first season that we’ll have people dedicated to the Tempo so that we can actually be really focused on those learnings. So there’s a lot we can learn from the business side. Going to the games, understanding the in-arena experiences as well as some of the back end,” Resch said.
“What’s incredible about the W is it is a great community and there’s a lot of best practices shared.”
Behind the scenes, the Tempo team has grown to 18 people, and things are beginning to accelerate due to the increased personnel.
The overall feeling among the Tempo’s first dozen-and-a-half hires? Excitement.
“I mean, think about your own life when you’re starting something new. And there’s just a lot of excitement because we all go into something feeling very positive, right? We know that it’s not gonna be an easy journey, but we’re up for the challenge and excited about it. There’s a lot of momentum, a lot of positivity, good vibes every day. So it’s nice to have that,” Resch said.
The budding group has helped transform the Tempo into an operational business — a definite step forward from when year ago when Resch and CFO Patrick Lee were the team’s first hires.
Still, it is early stages. The Tempo continue to implement back-end business software like CRM and ERP systems, among other “acronyms that I had no idea what they stood for six months ago,” Resch said with a laugh.
The goal is short-term pain for long-term gain.
“We’ll be able to find out more about our fan base, we’ll be able to engage with them in a more personalized way. We’ll be able to have financial documents that aren’t so manual so we can track our progress and make sure we’re running a really great business,” Resch said.
Elsewhere, there continue to be job postings on LinkedIn to join the Tempo, including one for a director of basketball operations to work side-by-side with Wright Rogers.
The team also keeps adding to its ownership group, with Xero CEO Sukhinder Singh Cassidy recently joining Larry Tanenbaum and Serena Williams. Resch said another addition will be announced soon.
And so, slowly but surely, things are coming together for the Tempo — and the group is learning together.
“You’re building that strategy from scratch, which is a really great opportunity, but also means you don’t have historicals to base it on. You have some market research and things across the league, but nothing that has actually happened in your market for your team before,” Resch said.
“So, I mean, those things are just exciting. You can call them challenges. I think it’s just opportunities to make your mark and set the tone for what is going to be an incredibly successful franchise for many years to come.”
