Nav Bhatia

Nav Bhatia (born July 9, 1951), nicknamed the Raptors Superfan, is a Canadian businessman and superfan of the Toronto Raptors basketball team. He founded and currently runs the Superfan Foundation to help unite people through the love of the sport. On June 19, 2018, Bhatia was named a recipient of the Top 25 Canadian Immigrants Award.

The superfan ‘spends $300k annually to send thousands of kids to Raptors games’. He ensures that people from different backgrounds — black, white, brown, rich, poor, Christian, Muslim — sit next to each other, in order to promote diversity and bring communities closer to each other.

In 2016 he became an official ambassador for World Vision’s Rise Up! Daughters of India campaign. It’s something near & dear to his heart, having witnessed first-hand the bias against females in India. His daughter Tia, was adopted from an orphanage in the country. Nav hopes that one day we will see an India where daughters are equally valued as sons.

Nav Bhatia has contributed significantly to the Muslim community through his superfan foundation, he recently partnered with Hoops for Her, a Muslim women’s basketball league, to ensure Muslim women have a safe space to play in their community. He provided Muslim girls with a safe space to play. Hoops for Her provides a space, where one did not exist otherwise, for Muslim women in the GTA to learn and play basketball in a comfortable, positive, and encouraging environment.