Fiorella Granda: Former U SPORTS Varsity Blues basketball player behind Canada’s first WNBA court

In the Fall of 2023, a crowd gathered in Toronto to witness something Canada had never seen before, the country’s first-ever outdoor WNBA court. In the Riverdale area, young girls came together to play in a new, art-covered space designed to reflect their basketball dreams back to them.

Standing at the centre of it all was former U SPORTS Varsity Blues basketball player Fiorella Granda, the illustrator and designer selected by the WNBA and NBA Canada to lead the creation of this historic project.

The court, named The W Club, became an instant landmark. Bright colours are curved across the asphalt along with iconic moments from Canadian women’s basketball that are painted between the three-point lines. The court celebrates women’s basketball culture while honouring the players, pioneers, and communities who shaped it.

“It was meant to capture the love and excitement of Toronto basketball fans,” Granda said. 

“We hoped the WNBA would expand to Canada, and it looks as though our plan worked.”

Starting in Spring of 2026, the Toronto Tempo will play their inaugural season in the WNBA. This comes after the sellout success of a preseason exhibition game between the Minnesota Lynx and Chicago Sky held at Scotiabank Arena in May of 2023. 

The Tempo will mark a new era for women’s basketball in Canada and will be led by Head Coach Sandy Brondello, while home games will take place at the Coca-Cola Coliseum in Toronto.

As the creative lead of the project, Granda guided a full team in translating her 2D vision into a dynamic 3D space, blending performance zones with artistic expression to create a court that was both functional and symbolic. The unveiling gained national media attention.

Still, working on the court was only the beginning of Granda’s broader impact on women’s sport in Canada.

She is now a full-time illustrator, designer, and content creator based in Toronto, known for her creative work that highlights the intersection of sport and design, which were both a large part of Granda’s life from a very early age. 

Her mother competed for the Peruvian national basketball team and her grandfather was an architect. Growing up between those two worlds, her future career seemed almost foreshadowed as she followed in both of their footsteps.

In 2019, she chose to attend the University of Toronto and pursue a degree in architecture while also balancing sport, competing as a women’s basketball player for the Varsity Blues.

“Most of my architectural projects are somehow connected to sport,” she said. 

“I even completed my senior thesis on providing sport and recreation to marginalized communities in Peru. That curiosity was always there, and it’s incredible to see what it has grown into today.”

That curiosity eventually guided her toward her work on The W Club and sparked a shift in her professional path.

“After I finished being a student-athlete, I felt a huge part of me was missing, so I started posting sport-related artwork on social media, not expecting much from it.”

At the time, Granda was working full-time at an architecture firm, continuing to post her art in her free time to a small online audience and questioning where she belonged. The open call for the WNBA court design could have easily passed her by.

“I was exhausted and unsure if I could take on anything extra,” she said. 

“But people kept sending it to me. Jess, one of my closest friends, told me, ‘You have to do this. You’re perfect for it.’”

She cleared her schedule over the Canada Day long weekend and created a design that would become a milestone in Canadian basketball history.

The final artwork featured references to the first WNBA basket and dunk, Canadian women’s basketball star Kia Nurse, and the community that had played on that court for years. When opening day arrived, Granda saw the positive impact of her work firsthand.

“On opening day, many young girls came up to me saying, ‘I’m going to play basketball too,’” she said.

“I’m a firm believer that representation truly matters.”

For Granda, the project was both validating and transformative, proof that the discipline and resilience she built as a U SPORTS student-athlete could translate directly into her own creative and entrepreneurial success. In 2024, she made the leap to full-time freelance work.

“Being freelance means I run my own company,” she said. 

“I bring the same tenacity I had in basketball and at U of T into the work I do now. I don’t think I would be where I am today without basketball.”

The rigor of U SPORTS competition, paired with U of T’s demanding academic environment, still influences how she approaches deadlines, client relationships, and creative direction.

“U of T is such a challenging academic environment,” Granda said. 

“If you can get through it as a student-athlete, you can get through anything.”

Her university experience also shaped how she handles feedback, something essential to her creative career.

“I’ve always been conditioned to accept feedback, whether it’s useful or not,” she said. 

“When I work with clients now, I always tell them to be honest. It won’t hurt my feelings.”

As her career evolved, Granda became increasingly focused on the importance of representation in women’s sport, something she was aware of long before entering the creative industry.

“I felt that discrepancy my whole life,” she said.

Granda has also seen how women in sport carry leadership qualities into their careers. 

“There’s a statistic that over half of female CEOs were student athletes. It speaks for itself,” she said, referencing a survey done in 2023 by Deloitte. The research showed that nearly 70% of high-earning women in leadership played competitive sports.

She says her work aims to actively push against certain marketing models that may have historically treated women as an afterthought in sport.

“My goal with my work is to make sport more inclusive through art,” she said. 

“Brands that invest thoughtfully in women can help grow women’s sports.”

The excitement around women’s sport in Canada has been visible among fans of newer leagues, such as the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL), National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), and now Toronto’s own WNBA team. 

The PWHL has already surpassed one million fans in attendance since launching, showing strong and sustained momentum. Women’s soccer is experiencing similar change, with the NWSL surpassing two million regular-season attendees for the first time and attracting more viewers across major broadcasts. This growth extends to women’s basketball, where Toronto’s strong support for WNBA exhibition games helped pave the way for the league’s first international franchise. 

Granda, who has collaborated with Tempo and appeared in CIBC’s Champions of Ambition campaign, views this progress as part of a larger cultural transformation.

“To play a role in shaping women’s sport in Canada was rewarding and fulfilling,” she said.

Even as she builds her own path, Granda remains mindful of the young women looking up to her, especially those navigating life after their U SPORTS careers.

“I never thought I could be an entrepreneur,” she said.

“Every time I had the thought, I convinced myself it wasn’t possible.”

Now her message is clear:

“If I could tell the next generation anything, it would be to take the biggest risks you can. You have your entire life to build the career you want. If you’re going to work for decades, you should do something you enjoy.”

According to Granda, her art is “dynamic, energetic, retro, and vibrant,” which is a reflection of movement, culture, and the game she loves.

And on that Toronto court, where bold colours meet baseline hustle, the next generation is already warming up. They’re running on a canvas that tells them, simply by existing, that they belong.