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Fans of teams with no geographic ties: Why do you root for your team?


Elky

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Living in Denmark, we had various Super Bowls on tv through the 80's and 90's, but it wasn't a yearly event. In 2001 a new TV channel, TV 2 Zulu, was launched, and one of the concepts was to broadcast a sport mostly played in the US, the choice was between NHL, NBA and NFL. The original thought was actually NHL and NBA, but the late airing of especially NBA was the main reason, that NFL games was put on on sunday nights.

I was on the NFL bandwagon from the start, which had a quite negative effect on my appearances in high school on monday mornings. As we rarely got more than 2 games a week, I didn't really have a favorite team. I didn't have any criteria for choosing a team, but I quickly discovered I liked defense. I began playing in the local club, that had a coach from Indianapolis. He talked about the Ravens defense and especially this Terrell Suggs guy they drafted in 2003, so I began taking a closer look at the Ravens.

Eventually I just liked what I saw from the very few games the Ravens had on danish TV, so it took to the 2004 Browns beating (jamal Lewis going crazy and Ed Reed returning an interception for 109 yards I believe) to make me a fan. Began following the draft at the same time.

 

The 2 hosts of the NFL on danish TV did such a good job, that by 2004-2005 people talked about the "zulu effect", they had on danish american football, which quickly evolved from there, and by 2006 Denmark was the country outside the US who aired most football games. Rotoworld and other US podcasts about football has also recognized that they have a broad fanbase in Denmark despite a population of 5.5 million citizens.

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When I was in 5th grade, I was on the school newspaper and the Arizona Cardinals were playing in Super Bowl 43. I had decided that I was going to pull for the Cardinals after hearing that one of my mom’s uncle/aunt pairs moved to Phoenix. 

I knew nothing about the NFL, football, or anything that would have helped me make a more informed decision. I watched the 1st half but I was made to go to bed by the 2nd half. I was upset after the Cardinals lost.

Still not knowing what the NFL or football is, I finally catch a glimpse of the Cardinals vs the Packers playoff game and start to hate the Saints with a passion after they injured Kurt Warner. I believed it was on purpose years before Bountygate was revealed. 

When the Cardinals start sucking again, I’m shocked as I didn’t know that they historically were perennial losers. 

I didn’t have SundayTicket so I was stuck just checking the scores and standings. 

I later began waffling between the Cardinals and Packers (because of Aaron Rodgers and wanting to hop on a winning bandwagon) in late middle school and early high school. 

Then, when the Packers start struggling and the Cardinals emerge the Packers take a backseat to the Cardinals.

Nowadays, I almost quit being a Cardinals fan after drafting Murray & trading Rosen. 

To be frank, despite being a year away from graduating college, I would still classify myself as extremely fickle in favorite teams, except for Clemson and the New York Yankees. 

Maybe the Cardinals are my true team, maybe they are not. But I have gamepass where I can watch every game since 2011, which is ironically when I started watching the NFL. 

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people from other countries: there is a massive problem here in aus with people that do not at all follow football but wear oakland raiders hats... so so many times one of my mates have been wearing one and i’ve been like, “oh do you follow the nfl” and then get hit with the “no, why?”

is this a thing in other countries too

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8 hours ago, Shady Slim said:

people from other countries: there is a massive problem here in aus with people that do not at all follow football but wear oakland raiders hats... so so many times one of my mates have been wearing one and i’ve been like, “oh do you follow the nfl” and then get hit with the “no, why?”

is this a thing in other countries too

Yes. Hell, even I had one as a kiddo in the 90s. I mean, black and silver, a cool looking pirate guy and the word "raider" (thanks, mom's dictionary) sewn on it... what else does an 8-year old want? It was a pretty good Chinese knock-off. It was discarded by the time I got into football:(

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Grew up in Cincinnati, so it was easy to be a Bengals and Ohio State fan.

 

Decided I wanted to be a fan of one more college team and Hershel walker was at Georgia at the time, so Ohio State would kick off at 12 and Georgia was on at 3:30 almost every week, so I became a Georgia fan because I could regularly watch them.  

After my freshman year in college (our last Super Bowl team), Paul Brown died and the team went downhill fast.  I ran cross country at a smaller college in Indiana, and a bunch of us used to play Playmaker Football on Macs.  half of the team from from Cincinnati or Dayton, so the "Bengals" name had been taken for that.  I called my team the Panthers, as it was a somewhat close relative of the tiger.  A few years later, the Carolina Panthers franchise began and I definitely needed another team to follow just to ease my pain while Mike Brown fought the IRS and didn't put as much money into the franchise as he should have been doing to ensure a quality team.  

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23 hours ago, Shady Slim said:

people from other countries: there is a massive problem here in aus with people that do not at all follow football but wear oakland raiders hats... so so many times one of my mates have been wearing one and i’ve been like, “oh do you follow the nfl” and then get hit with the “no, why?”

is this a thing in other countries too

Isn't it like a Mad Max thing there? 

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Leafs fan here. Most people cheer for Vikings or Green Bay here.

The Leafs sucked for over a decade, got into football via fantasy football and couldn't switch teams in NHL.  Brother-in-law is from New Orleans, he became a Leafs fan I became a Saints fan. 

 

Not going to lie though, the Vikings have an incredible spectator value for Skol Line, the Viking horn, Skol chant.  Love the city, the state the people and the team, but just not as much as the Saints lol.

 

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