Red flames sprayed from the shot clock and the arena lights were dimmed almost to black: it was time for the Raptors to announce their starting five.

As the players were named — Kyyyyle Lowry, Jonas Valanciuuunas, Amiiiir Johnson — the fans at Air Canada Centre rose to their feet and roared, a great vibrating sound of gratitude and anticipation.

The next night, in the same building, the Leafs’ starting lineup was introduced over the same loudspeakers. The applause was . . . polite, the kind you might hear at a golf tournament after a nice up and down.

With the Raptors rampaging through the Eastern Conference, and the Leafs — until recently, anyway — prompting people to throw their jerseys on the ice, the city is debating which of Toronto’s winter teams has better fans.

For years, it was no contest: Leafs Nation was loyal and passionate; Raptors crowds were fickle and shallow.

But the tide appears to be turning: former Leafs coach Ron Wilson likened the team’s home games to a “morgue” last month, while a Raptors playoff run in April served notice to the NBA that Toronto cares about hoops.

So we decided to conduct an experiment. A reporter (me) would buy a ticket and go to a Raptors game and a Leafs game on consecutive nights at the Air Canada Centre — Friday and Saturday. I would sit in the same section both times — 114, behind the basket and goal, respectively — to observe differences between the two groups of fans.

What do you think?

The Raptors were playing the Cleveland Cavaliers (it was LeBron James’s first trip to Toronto since his dramatic return to Ohio, so a big deal), and lost 105-91; my ticket was $226.

The Leafs, in the marquee Saturday night spot, were playing the Vancouver Canucks, and won 5-2; the seat cost $260.

Leafs fans are mostly white, they sure seem rich, they are quiet, they appear jaded, they use BlackBerrys. Raptors fans are younger, less rich, much less white — and much more fun.

Leafs fans have all kinds of explanations for why their home games can feel like a wake. Some consider this evidence of their sophistication. Leafs fans are students of the game, the theory goes — less inclined to get excited about a stretch of play than to mull it over like a sommelier considering a choice vintage.

“At Leafs games, everyone’s a coach or a GM,” said Jason Swaby, a 32-year-old software developer who watches both hockey and hoops at the ACC.

“Everyone’s got an opinion.”

This city’s NBA fans approach the sport as enthusiasts, not connoisseurs. Thousands of people will simultaneously hurl abuse at the referees when a whistle goes against Toronto, even if the call is obviously right. And Raptors crowds are inordinately responsive to the high-octane apparatus of fun concocted by the ACC.

There are those flames before tipoff, the near-constant in-game soundtrack of Top 40 and rap, the T-shirt giveaways, the cheerleaders during timeouts and, in my section, a jolly strawberry-blonde man employed by the team to dance in the aisles and drum up enthusiasm.

It all works embarrassingly well, each stunt provoking a shrieking, thunderous response.

Leafs fans are quick to point this out. Matt Coughlin, a cop from Belleville who was at the ACC last Saturday (and actually a Habs fan), put it this way: “Here, I want to see a hockey game. Basketball I just want to see entertainment.”

Raptors fans also enjoy the advantages of innocence and its corollary, hope. The franchise has had some terrible years, but in the Toronto sports world, they are understudies in agony. By the time the Raptors played their first game in 1995, the Leafs had gone 28 seasons without winning a Cup.

That probably helps explain the atmosphere of anxiety and foreboding that pervaded the ACC on Saturday night. Disappointed gasps or groans were as common, and as loud, as the hoots of approval. The “Go Leafs Go” chants were strangled and thin, like the voice of a carjacking victim trying to stand up for himself.

And this was during a blowout win.

“Leafs fans, you know what?,” mused Coughlin, “they wait for something to boo about.”

It was fascinating to watch them look for a dark lining in silver clouds. During the second intermission, with his team up 4-1 and looking dominant, lifelong Leafs fan Dave Birch, 56, had this cheerful thought: “It’s all hung on a thread.”

It’s a miserable — but perhaps inevitable? — way of thinking when you’ve followed the Leafs long enough. And in their bitter, recriminatory way, Leafs fans are loyal.

“I’ve been putting up with being the doofus in the Leafs jersey for 30 years,” said Simon, a quiet, serious young man watching the game intently through rimless glasses, who declined to give his last name.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Indeed, every Leafs home contest since the team moved to the ACC has been sold out, according to Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, which owns both franchises. And season ticket-holders — people willing to spend a small fortune to see their boys live — take up about 90 per cent of the seats at Leafs games, compared to 65 per cent for Raptors games.

Raptors attendance is hitched to the team’s performance: seat sales have fluctuated between about 17,000 and 19,000 per game in the last decade.

But if Raptors games are stuffed with front-runners, Leafs crowds feature their own kind of tepid fan: the suits. With an average seat price of $117, Leafs games can be out of reach for all but the well-heeled. (The average Raptors ticket price is $82, MLSE says, but on some nights upper bowl seats can go for less than $20.)

“Businessmen (come) here,” said scalper Charles Perkins before Saturday’s Leafs game. “Fans come to the Raptors.”

Sahle Meshesha, the parking attendant for a garage at Lakeshore Blvd. and Yonge St., sees a lot of Raptors and Leafs fans, and he has no doubt which ones are richer.

As he waves a minivan through with his orange baton on the night of the Raptors game, I ask who has nicer cars.

“Maple Leafs!” he says, as if it should have been obvious.

Why does he say it like that?

“Because rich people,” Meshesha replies. “The game is expensive. Also, the cars are expensive.”

He rhymes off the vehicles he sees: “Cadillac. Range Rover. BMW X6. Audi Q7.”

The crowd for last Friday’s Raptors game was a mosaic, like Toronto itself.

In my immediate orbit in section 114 , there was a second-generation Italian-Canadian guy named Vince; a group of four or five Chinese buddies who didn’t speak much English; two black families with small children who lived and died with every call (“you suck ref!” as one of the boys liked to say); and a worldly white tennis fan who flashed pictures of Roland Garros on his phone.

Advertisers also recognize the difference in the team’s fan base, according to sports marketer Brian Cooper, CEO of S&E Sponsorship Group.

“If you’re looking to reach Chinese, Filipino, Jamaican, you’re going to be able to reach them with the Raptors,” he said.

MLSE says 56 per cent of Leafs season-ticket holders were “born in Canada,” compared to 49 per cent for the Raptors.

On their way home from contests at the ACC, fans of both teams are known to stop at a pub called The Fox, just south of the stadium on Bay St. Last Friday night, a bartender named Aaron pulled up a stool and offered his thoughts on the difference between hoops and hockey drinkers. (He didn’t give his last name, to avoid alienating whole swathes of the bar’s clientele.)

Sure, Leafs fans tip better, Aaron said. He prefers working on hockey nights, for the money. But Raptors fans, he thinks, come closer to reflecting their city: “They’re more multicultural, more about what Toronto is, younger.”

“Raptors fans,” he concluded, “are more Toronto.”

RELATED:

Raptors more popular than Leafs? Not as far-fetched as it sounds