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Matt Slan is a HÂţ» management grad. |
It’s one thing to dream about owning a professional basketball team. It’s quite another to have accomplished that goal by the age of 26.
Matt Slan admits he’s both crazily excited and a bit nervous about his new venture as owner of the Toronto Stealth, the first Canadian expansion team in the Women's Blue Chip Basketball League (WBCBL) which recently hosted its first home game. But it’s an opportunity he couldn’t turn down.
“Everything I’m investing is worth it, because I believe in the larger vision of what I’m doing,” explains the HÂţ» management graduate. “I want to leave a lasting legacy on Canadian sport, to help develop a stronger, more competitive basketball scene where players know that they can have great careers. We can really open some doors here.”
A child of what he calls “the Jerry McGuire era,” Mr. Slan has wanted a career in sports management ever since a torn ACL at the age of 15 ended his hopes of being a professional athlete. During his time at HÂţ» he not only started to envision his own management company – which after graduation came to fruition as Slan Sports Management – but he also volunteered with the women’s basketball team, organizing halftime scrimmages between minor basketball teams and organizing table officials.
“He was very keen to help,” remembers Carolyn Savoy, recently retired as coach of Tigers’ basketball, noting that he had a strong taste for sports management. “It does not surprise me that he would have taken upon himself to become involved in the pro basketball league.”
The opportunity to start a WBCBL expansion team in Toronto came about last October when Mr. Slan was scouting opportunities for one of the players he was representing. League organizers weren’t just interested in a single player – they were looking to expand into Canada, and asked if he’d be up for owning his own franchise. The more he thought about it, the more he saw a chance to provide new competitive opportunities to a wide variety of female basketball players from across the country.
He’s spent the past eight months putting together his roster and getting business arrangements in place, all while still holding down his evening job editing highlight reels for Rogers Sportsnet. He confides that while the start-up costs were not huge compared to most businesses, it was certainly a lot of money to someone recently out of school. But when the team held its first practice a week ago, Mr. Slan finally saw his vision start to come to fruition – and he loved what he saw.Â
“It was the greatest feeling,” he says. “For the first time, this all felt real to me.”
The team played (and lost) its home opener Saturday, May 16 at Ryerson University against the Detroit Dolphins and has six home games scheduled throughout the summer. Mr. Slan says that the league will bring a fast-paced, more European style of basketball to Toronto while still providing the defensive core of the North American game. He also has no illusions that this is a “building year” for his team, and he hopes to build on his talented roster – featuring Canadian university and college, some with professional experience in Europe – in the off-season, along with finding more sponsorship and promotional opportunities.
“All business is competition,” he says. “You learn very quickly that people have a limited amount of disposable income and you’re competing for it. But that’s what I learned in my HÂţ» classes. They showed me the possibility – that I could take my business background and mix it with my first love of sports. And that’s exactly what I’m doing.”
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READ: in the Toronto Star