Sports Fanbases

From having to experience the Boston sports fanbases firsthand online (and feeling like I'm getting close to exploding as a result), I have decided to notice how sports fanbases tend to be in the United States. Of course, we all know about the East Coast Bias and how it makes some things seem more elevated than they really are. Well, they are right in terms of expressing the egotism and asshole tendencies of fanbases.

Here is how I have noticed it a geographical sense:

• Eastern United States: often loud, obnoxious and a little too passionate to the point that someone could get killed (examples: New York, Boston and Philadelphia).
• Midwestern United States: having the similar passion but a little less obnoxious and somewhat quieter about it (Examples: St. Louis, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Green Bay. Chicago is an exception as they tend to fit the Eastern example.)
• Western United States: only seems to care when the team is winning. After that, they jump on bandwagons and act like they have always supported the team (Examples: Los Angeles, San Francisco. Portland may be an exception.)
• Southern United States: Don't seem to care at all, unless it's college sports (Examples: Atlanta, Miami, Tampa Bay. Dallas and San Antonio are exceptions.)
• College sports: they are all obnoxious. Possibly no exceptions.

Anyone's thoughts?

edited 9th Jun '11 12:56:13 AM by Buscemi

If we had to lynch people every time the Seahawks lose, we'd be worse than the Mongols!

edited 9th Jun '11 6:06:58 AM by SavageHeathen

Sports Fanbases in the United Kingdom:

• They're all a bunch of cunts.

Football ones, anyway.

I suspect the Giants fan who was beaten half to death might disagree with your conclusion.

It varies from city to city, and from sport to sport. I don't think you can make blanket conclusions about fanbases like that.

They're fan bases. They've taken a form of entertainment seriously, there's only so much reason left to them.

I'm going to second pagad. Any fan who is slightly more then vocal tends to incredibly annoying about it.

The Giants won the World Series last year. Potential bandwagoner.

You left out the racing sports.

• F1...snooty and pretentious.
• Indycar...snooty and pretentious, without the prestige.
• NASCAR...antithesis of the above.
• Rally...the grunge guys
• Motorcyclists...all a bunch of nuts.
• Drag Racers...all burst, no stamina.

Maybe, but I think fans > casuals, for the most part. Better to care about the game than to go along for the fights.

Hell, I can't even be bothered with football half the time. But I am a Celtic supporter.

Celtic > Football.

It's hard to explain.

Exactly. With football in the UK and perhaps Europe generally, there's an awful lot of support which is really a kind of local patriotism. That's why I say I support Leeds United despite not really being that interested in the actual football.

The fans that really get stick tend to be those who are seen as departing from the rule of "support your local team" e.g. those infamous "Cockney Reds" (live in London, support Manchester United because they win a lot). The OP refers to this bandwaggoning effect in American football.

Sports fanbases in Glasgow - sectarian cunts of both denominations ripping the shit out of each other every weekend. This is a city in which the domestic abuse rate rises 40% whenever our two main football teams play each other.

Needless to say, I don't think very hihgly of such "fans" in this country.

Both sides have problems, only one has a sectarian problem. It's also the same side with the racism problem and the compulsive violence whenever they lose. Or win. Or draw.

The old myth about these things being "an Old Firm problem" or an exclusively football-related thing serves only to a) downplay the problems in Scotland that no one wants to talk about, and/or b) protect the perpetrators from real scrutiny.

edited 9th Jun '11 1:35:12 PM by TheBatPencil

Not denying they exist in more than football, but football is certainly a prominent outlet for it, and it's a place to start if nothing else. Both sides need to get it sorted, and as a neutral (read: Aberdeen fan) I despise the hardcore element of both sides of the Old Firm. They're both causing problems, and both need to get it sorted.

Myopia of course causes fans of one to tend to assume it's only the other who are at fault, but it's clearly both of them.

It's naive and an oversimplification to suggest that bigotry in Scotland is a 50/50 split. I wouldn't even say "sectarianism" would be the correct term to use for that very reason. Bigotry in this country is often portrayed as a "two sides of the same coin" affair but in reality that is not the case.

In fact there is almost a tactile acceptance of anti-Irish and anti-Catholic sentiment in many places in this country, and open hostility in others (the Orange Lodge, for one).

So as not to totally derail the thread, I agree that football is a common (but not the only) outlet for bigoted attitudes in Scotland. That would, if the issue was to actually be taken seriously, raise the immediate question as to why certain communities hold such views.

edited 10th Jun '11 4:30:55 PM by TheBatPencil

Who said 50/50? Please don't put words in my mouth. I just said that both are at fault, though I accept that they're not identical in their methods.

To keep us on the subject of sporting fanbases, there's an unfortunate massive undercurrent of xenophobia when it comes to tennis player Andy Murray here for some reason. As the most successful British player of the Open Era by a long shot, he manages to exemplify among some fans the English/Scottish divide. Scots accuse commentators of only referring to him as Scottish when losing, and British when winning. The English haven't forgiven him for his "anyone but England" comment relating to a football match 6 years ago, which was a joke and for which he has publically apologised. Apparently, he's a bigoted xenophobe who should stay in Scotland forever for that. Irony - it is lost on these people.

Anyway, this means that every time he plays there are far too many comments about his nationality. I don't know if this is a British thing though.

This is because there's not many pro-sports leagues in that area, but the college league fans can be just as bad.

The stupid, it hurts.

I'm in my uncharitable old man mode, so fuck sports. Fuck the tribalism that it encourages and fuck the sheer level of pigheadedness amongst its fanbases.

edited 10th Jun '11 4:53:34 PM by pagad

Sport can also bring people together in ways that few other things can. Maybe it's something you have to experience to appreciate but I know, from my own experiences as a lifelong Celtic supporter, that it's about being part of a community and a tradition that reaches back to the dark 1880s. It's about being part of a family, one that reaches from Celtic Park on matchday to pubs around Britain to folk getting out of bed at all hours everywhere from New York to Bangkok to watch us. It's about being part of a family that built a football club to feed the poor of Victorian Glasgow and that still stands as a central pillar of a worldwide community to this day.

Folk can say what they like about that, but I call it Goddamn

Very true. Read this.

Easily one of the most memorable things to ever happen in sports history.

I remember when the Packers won their playoff game against the Eagles this past season hearing something about a Packers fan whose car was trashed by some Eagles fans.

I will say about the OP's comment about the Southern pro teams that the South doesn't have a lot of really good pro teams, especially in the NFL. Dallas aside, look at the teams that can be considered to be in "the south." Texans, Saints, Titans, Falcons, Panthers, Jaguars, Buccaneers, Dolphins. None of these teams have ever been great for an extended period of time.

The Stadium has not changed since the Romans. Neither has the crowd. I swear, it's like a battlefield with fans; they wear brightly colored uniforms to differentiate each other in the fog-o-war.

I wish people would do that for other things.

And then they continued to play the whole "we were cursed so feel sorry for us" card after that (despite being on the same level as the Yankees on everything since then). Any momentum or sympathy was lost in record time, as they went from "lovable losers" to "just as bad as New York sports fans, if not worse".

edited 11th Jun '11 2:15:54 AM by Buscemi

Irish sports fanbases. Hmmmm, let's see...

Well the football fans are mostly chavs, so we'll not talk about them.

Gaelic Games fans are usually incredibly civil and well-mannered. Except for that one time.

Rugby fans are the best of the lot, in my opinion. Rugby really inspires a lot of cross-community togetherness between Protestants and Catholics, since there's only one team for the whole island (apart from the four provincial teams). That business with the anthem caused a stir a few years back, but we're over it now, and there's the odd demand for a Northern Irish rugby team, but they're ignored. The guys who do that would usually support England or Scotland instead.

Plus there's the fact that you hang with the opposing team during the social.