Despite a setback from Windsor City Council, the man who helped bring a Toronto Raptors viewing party to Windsor is pressing on.
Council agreed at its meeting Monday night to waive rental fees for Charles Clark Square for the purpose of having an all-ages Raptors viewing party. However, the city balked at covering the cost for the event, something organizer Renaldo Agostino said is done by most other municipalities that have hosted similar viewing events.
Nevertheless, Agostino told BlackburnNewsWindsor.com that a party Friday night for Game 4 is a go, one way or another. Further details were expected to be made public later on Tuesday.
"Friday night, no matter what. I'm working on it," said Agostino. "The first thing I said is 'don't count us out now'. We'll get this done."
Over 2,700 basketball fans packed Charles Clark Square to watch Game 2 of the NBA Finals between the Raptors and the Golden State Warriors. This was a local viewing, sanctioned by the Raptors' ownership group, similar to the massive fan gathering outside Scotiabank Arena in Toronto for Raptors playoff games.
Agostino went before council to try to work out a deal for the city of Windsor to be involved in viewing parties for the duration of the NBA Finals. At first, councillors said no to covering the cost of the event as is, so Agostino offered to sweeten the pot a little if the city took over the event.
"We would offer our assistance free of charge. We would offer our contacts at the same price they were able to do it for us. We would ask our contacts to move forward and have the city take over, without alcohol," said Agostino. "The city rejected that idea as well."
At least 36 municipalities have taken the lead for similar "Jurassic Park" events for Raptors games, according to Agostino, covering most, if not all, of the cost for set-up, sound, entertainment, concessions, security, and so forth.
Some on council said the Raptors event on Sunday night was a financial windfall for Agostino and his partners. Agostino disputed that, saying that while downtown businesses saw a jump in revenue Sunday night, he's not personally in it to get rich.
"We actually lost $9,700 on Sunday night by doing this for the city, and we've got no problem with that," said Agostino. "We're Raptors fans and Windsor is the first line of defence for us, so we wanted to make sure that it happened, and we wanted to make sure that it happened again."
Agostino said the crowd was happy and very well-behaved despite the Raptors' 109-104 Game 2 loss to the Warriors, with no incidents reported.
Game 3 is scheduled for Wednesday night in the Bay Area, but with rain in the forecast for Windsor, and the potential of drainage problems in the square, Game 4 was the next logical game as far as fan comfort was concerned.
Blackburn News will pass along additional details on this story when they become available.
