Launching Canada’s Future: Inside Toronto Tempo’s Ground-Up Journey

ESPN original, Setting the Tempo

Women’s professional sport has decades of history but very little record of the work that built the industry. Setting the Tempo, a four‑part ESPN Original Series premiering Sunday, September 20, set out to document one instance of that missing visibility as it follows the creation of the Toronto Tempo, the WNBA’s first Canadian franchise. The series tracks team president Teresa Resch, head coach Sandy Brondello, and general manager Monica Wright Rogers as they evaluate talent, establish culture, and build an organization under an incredibly compressed timeline. Resch and Emmy Award Winner Robin Roberts, who leads the production company (Rock’n Robin Productions) behind the series, each share their perspectives on the build, the decision to document it, and why increasing visibility across women’s sport continues to matter.

Resch, who previously worked with the Toronto Raptors, is one of the relatively few executives who can speak to the difference between operating within an established franchise and creating one. “The experience with the Tempo has been completely different than the experience with the Raptors in the sense of this is new,” Resch said. “Every decision we’re making, everything that we’re activating, is for the first time ever. It equates most with maybe the Raptors 30 years ago, or an expansion team in that space.”

What separates an expansion build from an established operation is that nothing arrives inherited. The whole genesis—everything an idea—is pretty unique, because that doesn’t really exist in anything established, she added. The Tempo are also the league’s first Canada‑based franchise. “Everything we’re experiencing with the Tempo is the first, and it’s also the first in Canada,” Resch said. “So, you add another layer of another country to it.”

Importance of Documenting the Build

Women’s sport has historically been under‑documented and far less visible than men’s sport. Women’s sport receives only 5‑15% of all coverage across media spaces, and the moments that have been captured skew heavily toward competitive achievement and international mega events, with very little footage recording women leaders in the act of building an organization. As a result, a franchise launch is certainly among the least documented events in women’s sport.

Resch noted, however, that this pattern is beginning to change. “Women in sports, and specifically the WNBA, have some of the best stories in all of sports, they’ve just never been told. And I’m so excited to see that is changing,” Resch said. “It’s so great to see them have the platform, and people investing in these stories and telling them.”

The choice to document the Tempo originated largely due to the volume of interest that followed the franchise announcement. “When we announced the team in May of 2024, I received an enormous amount of inbound from production companies interested in telling the story. So, I knew that there was something there.” Importantly, that initial burst of interest came not from existing relationships. “It wasn’t just one person I knew. It was people cold calling, and I knew nothing about that space.” Rock’n Robin was ultimately the right fit for the project, what Resch described as “a true, authentic connection to telling the story in a way that would elevate the women that were part of it, the leaders, and be respectful to also the space and time we were part of.”

For Robin Roberts, the appeal to documenting this build stemmed partly from her early access. “There was something very special about getting the opportunity to capture a franchise before there was even a team on the floor. You rarely get that kind of access to the beginning of something.” Roberts describes finding that the Toronto group was already thinking well past its roster decisions. “They weren’t simply launching a basketball team. They were thinking about culture, community, identity, and what this franchise could mean for an entire country.” Those are the kinds of stories Rock’n Robin seeks—tales of people building something meaningful and creating opportunities that did not previously exist. “We knew very quickly this was something worthy of documenting,” Roberts said.

A Build Defined By Uncertainty

The conditions under which the organization operated were considerably more demanding than a typical expansion build. The previous collective bargenging agreement had expired in October 2025 and a new agreement was not signed until March 2026—roughly seven weeks before Toronto played its first game. All of this meant that GM Wright Rogers was evaluating talent and assembling a roster without knowing the salary cap she would ultimately be working under. Every expansion franchise before this one built its initial roster against a known number.

Resch identifies that period as the defining characteristic of the season, and she expects it to resonate throughout the series. “The theme that also plays through it is uncertainty, that was such a huge part of our first season,” she said. “We didn’t even know the economic model we’d be working under.” Timelines were similarly unsettled. “We planned and planned and planned around what had happened previously, but ultimately we didn’t know until the day before, week before, month before what was actually going to be certain.”

Resch also noted that this uncertainty drove a specific leadership strategy. “People can handle bad news, but what they have a hard time dealing with is uncertainty,” Resch observed. The response to that uncertainty was to narrow the organization’s attention to what they did know and what they could control.

Resch explained that several components the team could plan for remained clear. Once the schedule was released, the team knew it would tip off May 8, the team would play an expansion draft, a college draft and free agency—all before the season began. The team also knew it would hire a coach and a general manager, launch a name and logo, and introduce mascots. “So, we just really tried to stay laser focused on what we could achieve and avoid being overwhelmed by things we didn’t know or didn’t have control over,” Resch said. “Controlling the controllables became a key to Toronto’s market success this season.” On July 10, the Tempo drew 20,996 fans to Montreal’s Bell Centre, surpassing the WNBA regular season attendance record of 20,711 set by Washington in 2024.

Resc is now among the few people who have executed a build like this for the inaugural time, positioning her as a resource for leaders who will build future franchises. When asked what she would pass along, she identified three core principles. The first is clarity about priorities: “For us, it was always about being Canada’s team.” The second is establishing competitive standards before competitive results arrive. Toronto was not expecting a championship as an expansion team, yet she noted that putting foundational standards in place from the start is valuable regardless of immediate outcomes. The third is tolerance for error: “You have to have grace and empathy. You’ll learn most from things that don’t go well, so you have to be okay with those things happening.” The operating principle the organization adopted was to assume positive intent—especially in a first year where decisions routinely make colleagues’ work harder unintentionally.

Women Leaders Paving the Way Forward

League expansion is one of the few mechanisms that creates multiple senior leadership openings simultaneously in an industry where turnover is typically very slow. Previous research in sport has documented women’s success at the highest levels, though organizations often do not diversify hiring decisions accordingly. During this expansion, Toronto placed women in its president, general manager, and head coach roles at the founding stage, challenging more traditional approaches to leadership attainment for women.

“When I took on the role of president, I knew that as the GM I wanted someone with great league experience, someone who understood the WNBA intimately,” Resch said. “That turned out to be a woman, because this league has been led by women for the last 30 years.” Wright Rogers, entering her first general manager position, applied a similar standard to the coaching search: “Being a first‑time GM, she wanted to hire someone who had won at this level.” Again, the women had been leaders here and were incredible winners. Sandy Brondello is one of the best coaches to have devoted her entire career to this league.”

In Resch’s framing, the hiring choices followed from prioritizing those specific criteria. “When those factors become your priority, you end up with women in leadership positions,” she said. “It hadn’t been the focus traditionally, but it has definitely shaped how we lead and what this organization is built on.”

Roberts, whose career has included rooms where few shared her experience, argues the significance of those hires extends beyond the three individuals holding the posts. “Visibility matters because you cannot underestimate the power of seeing yourself reflected—maybe that can be you.” She explains that what it feels like to enter a room and not recognize peers like oneself persists, but when others finally see diverse representation, possibilities expand dramatically. The roles that matter, her view holds, are not limited to athletes; representation must extend across front offices, ownership, production, media, and every other area where decisions are made. When young women see themselves reflected across all those contexts, the potential becomes larger.

Roberts recalls attending the CoachArt Gala of Champions in Beverly Hills, California, in October 2013—a milestone event where she shared perspectives that would inform the series. Setting the Tempo premieres September 20, with all four episodes available that same day on the ESPN app and Disney+, plus a linear debut starting at 8:30 p.m. ET on ESPN. The series airs subsequently from 5–7 p.m. ET on TSN and streams on Disney+ in Canada and select international markets.

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