Don't get me wrong... I'm still a fan of the sport. I enjoy the games for the enjoyment of the competition and appreciate the strategy and chess match between O and D. I also play fantasy, which keeps me invested in certain players and outcomes...
When college football and the NFL wrap up each year, I miss it and can't wait for the next season.
What I'm saying is that I enjoy the game, but as an interested observer rather than as a rabid partisan. There's not a team in the NFL that I have a significant emotional response to them winning or losing. I grew up a Bears fan. But seeing them lose is irrelevant to me, and seeing them have success like this year, it's sort of a mild nostalgia happiness of "oh, well, good for them!"
In CFB, on the other hand, even as a fan of a shitty team I hate to see them lose. And I spite their rivals' success. Watching IU have their success this year pains me in ways that should be embarrassing to reveal.
But what I can't see is becoming a frontrunner and being a fan of the current "hot" teams just to participate in success that I have no personal or emotional relationship with.
So.......you agree with me, it sounds like?
The one quibble I'd take with this view--and something utee mentioned earlier--is the dismissal of someone's enthusiasm who'd rightly be called a "frontrunner." It makes total sense to me that a homeless fan such as ourselves could be genuinely taken in by a top notch team, because let's face it, those are the teams that are the most fun to watch if you don't "have" a team for yourself. We don't tend to sit around watching mediocre people.....we like to watch greatness. So if you don't have a particular team, what else would happen other than being captivated by people at the top of the game you like to watch?
Caveat--if you're talking about people who suddenly act like they're hardcore genuine fans of the
team and act like they always have been, and try to look down on fans of other teams in the process, then yeah.....that's stupid. But if they just like watching whatever team(s) happen to be great at the time.....well, candidly, I identify with that, for the reasons mentioned above.
Something similar happened to me from my childhood through my early 20's. As a kid, if you'd asked me, I would've called myself a Chicago Bulls fan. Turns out, I wasn't really. I was a Michael Jordan fan, and to a lesser extent a Scottie Pippin fan, Dennis Rodman, Steve Kerr, Tony Kukoc, etc. When Jordan hung it up with the Bulls (along with the coach and every other player on that 1998 team), I realized I had no interest in the Bulls anymore. Louisiana had no NBA team at the time, and let's face it.....Michael Jordan was mesmerizing. At least to a kid who loved to play basketball. After that, for the remainder of my interest in the NBA (which is completely dead now), it was kind of the same thing.....I liked to watch specific players I liked, and failing that, whichever team was on TV.
Same thing with the NFL now. I loved watching Drew Brees. Mourned when he retired. But I liked him, not the Saints specifically. I still enjoy watching the Saints if they're what's on, but I'd probably rather watch teams with other players I like. If you like the game and don't have a particular team you root for, I think it's natural to gravitate toward great players, like, say, Patrick Mahomes. I think it's fair to make a distinction between being a guy who genuinely likes watching the Chiefs play (me), and being a bandwagon "Chiefs fan" (not me). If the Chiefs sucked for an extended period of time, and I became less interested in them like I am with the Brees-less Saints now, I maintain that's a fair stance, and don't deserve scorn which should be aimed at the stupid kind of frontrunners I mentioned.
