Unknown Rival / Sports

• The England vs. Germany football rivalry continues to rage harder and harder into the 2010s... or at least it does in England. The Germans could not care less about England and are much more concerned with their actual arch-rivals, the Dutch. One thing about the 1966 match that did rankle with German fans for a long time was England's controversial third goal; as a result of that, when in a 2010 World Cup match a bad refereeing call deprived England of a valid goal, there was much celebration of a 40-year-old injustice being righted.
• The city of Baltimore lost their longtime football team, the Colts, to the city of Indianapolis in the spring of 1984. The fans of the team have since sported a longtime hatred of the owners of the team (Robert Irsay at first, then his son Jim after Robert passed away). Since Baltimore gained a new NFL team (the Ravens), whenever the Colts have visited, they have been introduced as the "Indianapolis professional football team" (pointedly avoiding the nickname "Colts"), among other indignities. Those in Indianapolis have no particular hatred of the Ravens (or the city of Baltimore in general); many Colts fans don't even know there is a rivalry, and the rest simply don't care.
• Meanwhile, the Cleveland Browns claim rivalries with all three teams in their division: the Pittsburgh Steelers as a traditional rivalry, the Cincinnati Bengals as an intrastate rival, and the Ravens because their team was founded at the expense of decimating the Browns franchise^note in 1995, the existing Browns team moved to Baltimore and became the Ravens, and the Browns franchise was left to start essentially from scratch. Unfortunately, due to their...ineptitude...at fielding a competitive team, those three teams have historically focused more on each other than the Browns. However, the team's major turnaround in the 2020 season, which they capped off by handing Pittsburgh a shocking playoff defeat^note in addition to beating Cincinnati twice and Pittsburgh once in the regular season, combined with Cincinnati, not Cleveland, coming in last in the division for three years straight, will probably lead to the Browns being taken a bit more seriously going forward.^note Or maybe not, as they missed the playoffs in 2021 while the Bengals played in the Super Bowl.
  • In UrinatingTree's videos, Tree, a Steelers fan, argues that the Steelers were this towards the New England Patriots during the Patriots' Tom Brady years. Many Steelers fans often see their team as one of New England's biggest threats in their conference, despite the fact that the Patriots have consistently manhandled Pittsburgh for a long time, and Tree points out that even though the Steelers have gone to the Super Bowl three times in the Brady/Belichick era (winning two), they never had to face the Patriots in those playoff runs.
• Both fans and players of the Cincinnati Reds and Milwaukee Brewers have a bitter hatred of the St. Louis Cardinals due to the later team's constant success within their division (and for Brewers losing to the Cardinals in their only World Series appearance^note The Brewers, originally the Seattle Pilots for their first season, were in the American League until 1998), but most Cardinal fans did not realize this, as they were more focused on the Arch-Enemy Chicago Cubs and the Friendly Rival Houston Astros. That was until players on the Reds (Brandon Phillips in 2010) and Brewers (Nyjer Morgan and Zack Greinke in 2011) started insulting the Cardinals. The fans became very aware of the rivalry after that.
• Fans of the San Diego Padres absolutely hate the Dodgers, bitter at how Dodgers fans have a habit of traveling en masse to San Diego for games and often nullifying their home-field advantage, as well as how the Dodgers are simply their closest geographical rivals in general. Unfortunately for them, their hatred can never be reciprocated, as the Dodgers tend to save all their hate for the Giants, their ancient enemy. The Dodgers may start to take them seriously however as of 2022 playoffs in which the 111 win Dodgers were humiliated 3-1 by the 89 win Padres in the NLDS. Even better? The game clincher was in San Diego where the Padres fans came in full support of their hometown team. Home field advantage indeed.
• The Minnesota Twins fandom contend they have had a rivalry with the New York Yankees ever since beating the Yankees in their very first game in 1961. They often push how they go after the Yankees in playoff chases and celebrated how they were World Champions in 1987 and 1991 when the Yankees were mired in the cellar. It's increased as since 2004, the Twins have lost 10 playoff games to the Yankees and consider them prime targets. Ask any Yankees fan and they barely give the Twins a second thought as not even a distraction to the iconic hate between the Yankees and Red Sox.
• On a similar note, the New York Mets have almost always had to live in the shadow of the regular in-city favorite Yankees. As such they consider the Yankees to be the local tyrants who need to be taken down a peg, and have declared themselves as the Yankees' second-biggest rivals after the Red Sox. Yankees fans, on the other hand, generally have zero opinion on the Mets,^note Outside of when the Mets and Yankees actually face off, such as the 2000 World Series and a minority are also fans of the Mets who would like to see them win the World Series over any team that's not the Yankees.
• Keeping with the theme of the two-team major market rivalries, in Chicago we have the Cubs and White Sox and in Southern California, we have the Angels and Dodgers. The Cubs and Dodgers have been the historically successful and popular teams. However, in the 2000s, the Angels and White Sox had their own moments of popularity: The Angels won the World Series in 2002, while the White Sox got a World Series title three years later^note Coincidentally, they beat the Angels to reach the World Series that year.. For a while, they remained the last WS wins for their respective cities/regional areas, until the Cubs won the World Series in 2016 and the Dodgers won in 2020. While Angels and White Sox fans loathe their in-city neighbors, the Cubs and Dodgers either reserve their hatred for each other (due to their recent postseason meetings) or their historical rivals (the Cardinals and Giants, respectively).
• Boy, oh boy, where do we begin with both of the NBA teams that reside in Los Angeles? Ever since the Clippers' move to Los Angeles from San Diego in 1984, Clipper fans felt that their new neighbors, the Lakers, would be their biggest rivals. But here's the thing: While the Lakers have been historically successful^note At the time the Clippers moved to L.A., the Lakers had eight championships under their belt, the Clippers...have not. While the Lakers won championships left and right, the Clippers were designated as the little brother team, and it showed: Between 1984 and 2010, the Lakers won eight more titles, while the Clippers only made the playoffs a paltry four times in that span (1992, 1993, 1997 and 2006). When the 2010s rolled around, the Clippers slowly began to build up some respect by making the playoffs in consecutive years, while the Lakers began to miss the playoffs in consecutive years, something they hadn't done since the mid-1970s. When the 2020s arrived, the Lakers won one more title, and a year later, the Clippers finally made their first trip to the Western Conference Finals. Despite the Clippers' recent trips to the playoffs, Laker fans barely pay any attention to the Clippers or their fanbase, reserving their hatred for the Boston Celtics.
• In the NHL the Nashville Predators and the Columbus Blue Jackets both see the Detroit Red Wings as a major rival. The Red Wings on the other hand are focused on the other Original 6 teams (particularly division rivals — Chicago when they were in the Central; Toronto and Boston now in the Atlantic), the Pittsburgh Penguins, and during the 90s and early 2000s the Colorado Avalanche.
  • The Preds were just getting recognized by the Red Wings as genuine rivals (after Nashville won their third playoff matchup in 2012, but the Wings have since moved to the Eastern Conference. Nashville has to focus on Chicago now... but the Blackhawks have been in a heated rivalry with the Vancouver Canucks.
  • Blue Jackets fans, being in the heart of Ohio State territory, hate the Red Wings and everything else from "that state up north". How a Wings fan sees the Jackets? "Oh, you guys have a team? How cute." It doesn't help that Detroit swept Columbus the one time the Blue Jackets made the playoffs before the 2013 realignment.
• In NCAA Football the Marshall University Thundering Herd plays this to the West Virginia University Mountaineers. Marshall fans consider this an important heated rivalry and the "Friends of Coal" bowl to be a must watch event. WVU fans consider their annual meeting a pointless game against a mediocre, obscure team.
• The North Carolina State University Wolfpack considers the University of North Carolina Tar Heels to be their rivals. The NC State side of the rivalry is quite heated and intense. UNC, however is too busy with one of the greatest rivalries in the history of college basketball to pay much attention to State, and considers NC State to be, at most, an annoying little brother.
  • Part of this is because the NC State-UNC rivalry used to be bigger than the UNC-Duke Rivalry, but as Duke has risen and NC State has fallen, it has faded in UNC's eyes. This just makes NC State fans madder.
• In English Football, there was a survey as to who clubs consider their chief rivals. Less than half of the "rivalries" were two-way. For example, Manchester United and Liverpool have one of the most intense rivalries in sport. But don't tell that to Arsenal, Bolton, or Leeds, which consider Man Utd their archrival, or Everton, which considers Liverpool its arch-rival.
• The Montreal Alouettes, whose traditional rival (Ottawa) was out of commission after folding twice, had a few of these until a third Ottawa team started up in 2014. Their Labour Day Classic game (traditionally a time where the whole league pairs up in rivalry matches) shifted to an East-versus-West game against the BC Lions, a team that has no real rival, but they never treated BC as their new rival. In 2009, an attempt was made to found a team in Quebec City and have them be Montreal's rival because they'd be in the same province, similar to Edmonton-Calgary and Hamilton-Toronto. Montreal basically laughed it off and shut down their attempt, saying any bid to make another team in their province would have to go through them. Now that Ottawa has a team again, however, the fact that it's technically a new franchise hasn't stopped Montreal from igniting the old flames, probably because they're not the original Montreal Alouettes either and actually began as the Baltimore Stallions during the American expansion experiment.
• In NCAA Division I ice hockey, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has decided that Clarkson University is their main rival, while Clarkson focuses primarily on its rivalries with St. Lawrence University, its main mutual rival, and Cornell University. Ironically, Clarkson is somewhat an unknown rival to Cornell, which believes its true rival to be Harvard, another Ivy League School, although, unlike RPI students, Clarkson students generally realize that Cornell does not consider them a rival.
• Michigan State University considers the University of Michigan to be their biggest rival. Unfortunately for them, while Michigan does consider it to be a significant rivalry, it plays second fiddle to Michigan's intense rivalry with Ohio State, stemming from the state border dispute over the ownership of the Toledo Strip. In fact, Michigan fans will root for MSU if they are playing Ohio State because they hate them that much.
• The AFC East has a ton of this. Buffalo Bills fans despise all 3 of the other teams in the division, Miami Dolphins fans pretty much ignore the Bills and treat the Jets like a joke, New York Jets fans feel likewise about the Dolphins and really hate the Patriots, while New England Patriots fans treat the other 3 teams like they're nothing but jobbers. However, with Tom Brady's Reign of Terror finally ending after the 2019 season and the Bills finally ending their 2 decades of futility by winning the division in 2020 and 2021 this may get changed around a bit in the future.
• In regards to South-American national soccer teams, the "Rivalry of the Pacific Ocean" often comes off as Peru having this towards Chile. The otherwise more or less friendly Peruvians tend to rage at Chileans whenever it's time for their national teams to play in Peruvian soil, which often takes Chileans by surprise since they tend to focus far more on their next-door neighbors: Argentina.
• In what is probably the most extreme example, UConn head football coach Bob Diaco decided to create a conference rivalry game for the team after losing their traditional rival games during the 2013 conference realignment. He chose the University of Central Florida and went on to create the "Civil ConFLiCT" and have a trophy made up. However, UCF has no interest in the rivalry whatsoever, going so far as to leave the trophy at UConn's stadium when they first won the game in 2016. And with UConn leaving the conference shortly after, it seems this rivalry was more of a dead on arrival-ry.
• Jeremy Stephens, in an attempt to make himself seem like a threat towards then reigning UFC champion Conor McGregor, ended up confusing the notorious one as to who he even was supposed to be in a moment that has become quite legendary in the company's history:
  Journalist: Conor, take a look around you. You got a lot of champions, a lot of grizzled vets. Who do you think would give you the hardest fight out of anybody on stage?
  Jeremy: RIGHT HERE! Right here! The REAL hardest hitting 145-pounder right here! This guy TKOs people. When I knock people out, they don't fucking move!
  Conor: ...Who the fuck is that guy?
  [Crowd laughs]
  Jeremy: ...YOU KNOW DAMN WELL WHO I AM!
• Mat Ishiba, the CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage, bought the NBA's Phoenix Suns in 2023. He is known for having engaged in shady practices in advancing his wholesale lending business, including refusing to work with realtors that work with other lenders—especially Rocket Mortgage, owned by Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert. Althrough Ishiba has harboured intense professional animosity for Gilbert, people who know both claim that they have never met, and have never communicated beyond saying a cordial "hello" at NBA Governor Meetings.