Superfan in basketball’s HOF

Two weeks ago, basketball legends Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant, along with other people who had made significant contributions to basketball were inducted into basketball’s Hall of Fame.  But one who had never played nor officiated nor wrote or broadcasted the game, was included along with the greats in the induction ceremonies, the first fan ever to be inducted.

You might have noticed a turbaned guy at his usual courtside seat behind one of the goals during Toronto Raptors home games.

In 1984, Navdeep Bhatia, an engineer by profession, migrated to Toronto, Canada and worked 100 hours a week as a salesman.  He was so good in sales that in 3 months had sold a record of 127 cars and two years later, bought the car dealership.  Presently, Nav owns two Hyundai dealerships, among one of Canada’s top selling car dealers.  When the Raptors came into being in 1995, it became his outlet for all the stress.

The pace and excitement of the game attracted him to basketball and he loves it.  “My wife says ‘basketball is your first wife’ because for 25 years of my life, I have never missed a minute of any of my Raptors games, I have never been late and I have never left early and I have missed my wife’s birthdays, our marriage anniversaries.”  Chuckling, he added, “I am a superfan outside but I’m not very much loved at home, you know.”  Adding further, “For two and a half hours, you forget everything.”  Of course, including birthdays and anniversaries.

Simply known as Raptors Superfan, Nav founded the Superfan Foundation which aims to bring people of different ethnicity in Canada and the world united through sports.  He spends $300,000 of his own money every year to buy tickets for children to watch the Raptors play.  “Diversity is strength.  I have no hatred for those who didn’t treat me with respect back then.  There was a time when I used basketball as an entertainment.  Now I want to use it to bring diverse groups together,” he says.

“My job as a fan was to mess with their free throws” Nav said, which one time led Garnett to request the Raptors to throw out the “drunk”, even though Nav never had a drop of alcohol in his life.  Mark Cuban would often ask to have his familiar twirling towel taken away from him when the Mavericks travel to Toronto.

The team presented him with his own championship ring when the Raptors won their first NBA title in 2019.  Now, Nav has a basketball HoF ring to add to his collection saying, “I wear this with immense pride and responsibility to carry on spreading the game I love.”

When the 69-year old Nav walked into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Museum in Springfield, Massachusetts on the day of the ceremony, he was greeted with his own gallery of memorabilia – his Raptors jersey which the team gave to him in 1998 when they baptized him Superfan, a replica of his 2019 championship ring, his courtside chair and his turban with the red band.

Never imagining becoming a Superfan, Nav said, “Where does a fan get to be the grand marshal of the biggest sports parade that happened in Toronto in 2019?  Where does a fan, ever in the history of any sport, gets a championship ring worth $80,000 from the team?  That means that the team considers me as a player.  And the third now, with the Hall of Fame ring.  This is not supposed to happen to a fan but it has happened.  God is really good.”

If there are urban legends, basketball’s Hall of Fame now has a Turban Legend.