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Heritage

The Toronto Raptors — the Bitove founding

Closed Bitove sold his stake in 1996–97

Professional basketball · Toronto · Greater Toronto Area

On 30 September 1993 the NBA awarded Toronto its expansion franchise to a bid led by 33-year-old John Bitove Jr., who named the team the Raptors, served as its first chief executive, and set in motion the arena that became the Air Canada Centre. He left the ownership group in the late 1990s; the franchise he founded brought Canada its first NBA championship in 2019.

Canada Basketball gave him its inaugural Naismith Award of Excellence in 2005, and the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame inducted him as a builder in 2022 — a Macedonian-Canadian founding chapter written into the country's sporting history.

Details

Founded
franchise awarded 30 September 1993
People
John Bitove Jr., founder and first CEO

Sources (1)

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bitove

  • The Java Shoppe

    Coffee shops · North York (Toronto)

    Closed 1960s (absorbed into later ventures)

    A fourteen-stool coffee counter opened by a teenaged John Bitove Sr. — with Dotsa beside him — became five locations by 1962 and the seed of the largest private...

    Macedonian connection: The fourteen-stool coffee shop where the Bitove empire began; John Sr. was the Toronto-born son of immigrants from Gabresh.

    Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bitove_Sr.

  • Toronto Travel Advantage — Danny Ry

    Travel agency · Toronto

    The society's news archive preserves the scene: a community charity evening, a 'lucky draw' of prizes donated by Macedonian businesses, and the grand prize — a...

    Macedonian connection: A community travel agency remembered in the society's archive as donor of the grand prize — a Florida trip — at a Macedonian charity evening.

    Sources: https://macedonianhistory.ca/news/macedonian-kolede-costume-ball — Society news archive — the Kolede ball, whose grand prize Danny Ry and Toronto Travel Advantage donated

  • York County Quality Foods

    Institutional catering · Toronto (Pearson Airport)

    Closed merged into Bitove Corporation 1989

    In 1983 John Bitove Sr.'s York County Quality Foods took the ten-year food-and-beverage contract at Toronto Pearson away from the incumbent giant — the win that...

    Macedonian connection: The Bitove vehicle that beat the incumbent for Toronto Pearson's food-and-beverage contract.

    Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bitove_Sr.

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