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Topic: Fan base study
(Read 11635 times)

utee94 · « **Reply #42 on:** March 23, 2023, 11:14:00 AM »

I guess I'd say "true" bandwagoners will switch allegiances along with the fortunes of the team. My nephew does this, he was a Ravens fan when they won a Superbowl, but when they started sucking he switched to the next good team, and the next. He justifies it by claiming he follows players more closely than teams, and he'll pick out a player or two that he really likes. But he doesn't ever seem to pick out a good player, on a bad team, and make his rooting decisions based on that...

medinabuckeye1 · « **Reply #43 on:** March 23, 2023, 11:20:54 AM »

Quote from: Brutus Buckeye on March 23, 2023, 08:56:21 AM

Yeah, there's no point in being "loyal" to a professional franchise that can just pack up and move to another state overnight.

I learned this the hard way, probably the same way you did.

The NFL lost me with that move and I never went back. I watch the SuperBowl but mostly for the ads and I typically have to look it up to even figure out which teams are playing. My SuperBowl rooting decision is typically made by looking up the former Buckeyes on the two teams and rooting for whichever team gets the most contribution from Buckeyes.

utee94 · « **Reply #44 on:** March 23, 2023, 11:26:31 AM »

Yeah I can see that. I suppose if the Cowboys ever left the state, I might feel similarly.

And my rooting interest in pro teams is only a small fraction compared to my rooting interest in my college team, but I still like to watch and follow when I have time.

medinabuckeye1 · « **Reply #45 on:** March 23, 2023, 11:42:49 AM »

Quote from: utee94 on March 23, 2023, 11:26:31 AM

Yeah I can see that. I suppose if the Cowboys ever left the state, I might feel similarly.

And my rooting interest in pro teams is only a small fraction compared to my rooting interest in my college team, but I still like to watch and follow when I have time.

Prior to the Browns' move I was a pro sports fan at almost the level of my college football fandom, as a fan of all of Cleveland's franchises.

After the Browns' move I became a "fair weather" Cleveland sports fan. Some may not see it this way, but I see being a "fair weather" fan as being distinct from being a "bandwagon" fan. The distinction is that my fandom doesn't hop from team to team. However, I don't follow "my" pro teams unless they are winning. The way I see it is that they aren't loyal to me so I'll watch them when they give me something worth watching and when they don't, I'll do something else.

NFL:
I'm a fair weather Browns fan but for all intents and purposes that means I'm not a fan at all because the last fair weather was decades ago.

MLB:
I used to be a fair weather Indians fan but I can't find any recent information about the Indians so apparently I no longer have a team.

NBA:
I'm a fair weather Cavs fan but I don't expect to ever see fair weather in Cleveland again. Also, I only ever follow the Cavs in the second round of the playoffs and beyond. They literally send more than half of the NBA's teams to the playoffs. Thus, as I see it, if my team makes it to the second round of the playoffs, I'll pick it up from there. If they don't, the season sucked so I didn't miss anything.

CatsbyAZ · « **Reply #46 on:** March 23, 2023, 12:20:19 PM »

Quote from: OrangeAfroMan on March 23, 2023, 08:53:19 AM

That's so odd to me.
It's more fun being a fan of a team that everyone around you isn't a fan of (aka for Florida in AZ).

Now, my friend's daughter is going to be attending Arizona this year, so that will sway me in the Arizona vs ASU thing, but nothing more.

I lived in a lot of places growing up, and my only fandom that stuck was for the Gators, which ended up waning anyway a decade ago during my student years at University of Arizona.

Grandpa would let us kids finish watching Saturday morning cartoons and then turn the TV to College Football for the day. Spent my very youngest years watching Spurrier’s Gators. I can still remember beating Tennessee over and over - won’t ever feel that hyped about sports again.

Discarded the Dolphins for the Cowboys when we moved to Oklahoma and Texas. Rooted for Oklahoma St Cowboys sports until moving to Texas where the Longhorns and Aggies owned the sports scene. My teachers through my middle school grades were a mix of Longhorns and Aggies fans.

Then following the Rams while living in St Louis. Hawaii football while stationed at Pearl Harbor. I could go on, but point is the teams I followed depended on where I happened to be living. Now as an Alum of Arizona I’ll always carry them around, and still go to their sporting events - basketball and football, as well as about one Arizona State football game a year.

My fandom is more of a social thing than an emotional state now. I am with the Purdue fan at this point. I don’t ever want to be as emotionally invested in sports, to the point that a loss can leave me upset for more than a day, but I watch sports as much as ever, and attend sporting events more than ever. Hoping to finally catch a Longhorns or Aggies home game this season.

Riffraft · « **Reply #47 on:** March 23, 2023, 02:08:51 PM »

I have been loyal, in general, to the teams that I grew up with.

College - Being born and raised in Columbus with fanatical parents when it came to the Buckeyes, I had no choice. Ultimately did my undergrad degree at OSU, so tried, true, going nowhere.

NFL. I was 4yos when the Browns last won the NFL, I have seen them thru all the ups and downs for all that time. While Fandom is not as strong as the Buckeyes, I still wear Browns hats and T-shirts and generally don't miss a game. Actually flew into Ohio last year to watch a game live, though I probably wouldn't have done that if I hadn't gone to the OSU-UM game the day before.

MLB-This is the one place where I changed fandom. I was 9yos when the Mets won the world Series and I became a fan of Tom Seaver. Stayed a Mets fan until they trade Tom to the Reds and I switched to the Reds. Stayed a Reds fan after Tom left to go to the White Sox, probably because they were a relatively local team for me. Not an over the top baseball fan with Reds doing so poorly and no signs of getting better.

NBA-I became a Celtics fan when I was a kid because they were winning, but also because Havelicek went to Ohio State. Stayed a fan until I stopped watching the NBA about the time that Byrd and Johnson retired.

Being in the Phoenix area, there are quite a few people who have become fans of the local teams in spite of not being from here (almost nobody is from here). Personally I can't understand changing who you are a fan of because you moved away from the team you are a fan of.

utee94 · « **Reply #48 on:** March 23, 2023, 02:14:51 PM »

Quote from: CatsbyAZ on March 23, 2023, 12:20:19 PM

I lived in a lot of places growing up, and my only fandom that stuck was for the Gators, which ended up waning anyway a decade ago during my student years at University of Arizona.

Grandpa would let us kids finish watching Saturday morning cartoons and then turn the TV to College Football for the day. Spent my very youngest years watching Spurrier’s Gators. I can still remember beating Tennessee over and over - won’t ever feel that hyped about sports again.

Discarded the Dolphins for the Cowboys when we moved to Oklahoma and Texas. Rooted for Oklahoma St Cowboys sports until moving to Texas where the Longhorns and Aggies owned the sports scene. My teachers through my middle school grades were a mix of Longhorns and Aggies fans.

Then following the Rams while living in St Louis. Hawaii football while stationed at Pearl Harbor. I could go on, but point is the teams I followed depended on where I happened to be living. Now as an Alum of Arizona I’ll always carry them around, and still go to their sporting events - basketball and football, as well as about one Arizona State football game a year.

My fandom is more of a social thing than an emotional state now. I am with the Purdue fan at this point. I don’t ever want to be as emotionally invested in sports, to the point that a loss can leave me upset for more than a day, but I watch sports as much as ever, and attend sporting events more than ever. Hoping to finally catch a Longhorns or Aggies home game this season.

If you end up in Austin let me know.

Also, you should try to get to the TX-OU game at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, too. It's a spectacle of incredible proportions.

medinabuckeye1 · « **Reply #49 on:** March 23, 2023, 03:07:46 PM »

Quote from: Riffraft on March 23, 2023, 02:08:51 PM

Being in the Phoenix area, there are quite a few people who have become fans of the local teams in spite of not being from here (almost nobody is from here).

I mentioned upthread my theory that the Big Ten has something of a "disapora" of fans made up of former residents and decendents of former residents. Your comment about nobody being from Phoenix is representative of the massive scale of the population migration over the past 80 years or so.

In the 1940 census Arizona was the 43rd most populous state with less than half a million people. All of the following cities in the (current, not then) B1G footprint had more people in 1940 than the entire state of Arizona:

3.4M, Chicago
1.9M, Philly
1.6M, Detroit
0.9M, Cleveland
0.9M, Baltimore
0.7M, Pittsburgh
0.6M, Milwaukee

Additionally, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, and Newark each had a population in excess of 400k so nearly as great as the entire state of Arizona.

betarhoalphadelta · « **Reply #50 on:** March 23, 2023, 03:52:26 PM »

The fan bases that are interesting to me are the SoCal schools, USC and UCLA. You'd think that in a megalopolis of almost 13M people (basically LA County and Orange County) and potentially up to 18.5M people (adding Ventura, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties), you'd have MASSIVE fan bases around here. But you don't.

There are some similar aspects that you find to Arizona (lots of transplants), but also a lot of other aspects involved.

Some of the things that I think are involved:

A huge portion of people here are transplants, either domestic or internationally. The domestic transplants come with their own rooting interests already established.
Very large immigrant population here, with no real connection to college sports.
Very large Latino population, many who are more interested in futbol than football.
Significant pro sports footprint, although there was obviously a long period where the NFL was not represented. The Lakers and the Dodgers are huge.
Big ones--although UCLA and USC are premier schools in the state of California, their enrollment numbers are miniscule in relation to population size. So most locals end up at different UC campuses, or Cal State schools, Cal Poly, private universities not named USC, etc. So although they may have an affinity for one of the two football schools, it's not remotely as "personal" as having attended or being the child of someone who attended. This is a lot different than a low-population Midwest or Southern school where you have a flagship or co-flagship universities that everyone aspires to attend. It's diluted here.
A billion other things to do here that aren't sports, whether college OR pro, so it's not like sports is the only attraction for peoples' time.

The end result is a bunch of fair-weather fans (rather than bandwagon). They will get excited when the schools have long stretches of good play (like USC in the 2000s), but beyond that they don't actually care enough to show up when the teams aren't good. Because it's not PERSONAL to any of them.

medinabuckeye1 · « **Reply #51 on:** March 23, 2023, 04:21:44 PM »

Quote from: betarhoalphadelta on March 23, 2023, 03:52:26 PM

Very large immigrant population here, with no real connection to college sports.
Very large Latino population, many who are more interested in futbol than football.

I think that this is a huge and typically vastly underappreciated factor.

Looking at the 2020 census, Ohio remains almost exclusively White (80%) and Black (14%). There are only a handful of Hispanics, Asians, and others. By contrast in California Blacks and Whites make up less than half of the population combined.

I'm sure there are Asian and Hispanic CFB fans (I've known a few) but my guess is that CFB fandom is substantially less prevalent among Hispanics and Asians than it is among Blacks and Whites. I would also guess that the vast majority of Hispanic and Asian CFB fans are alums who picked up their fandom in school. It is a lot different for Blacks and Whites many of whom grew up rooting for a CFB team.

utee94 · « **Reply #52 on:** March 23, 2023, 05:34:53 PM »

Texas is 40% hispanic/latino and no problem with them becoming football fans. They love them some Vaqueros!

Brutus Buckeye · « **Reply #53 on:** March 23, 2023, 07:18:25 PM »

The Vegas Hispanics are ALL IN on their NHL team, which is kind of interesting. Every last one of them is decked out from head to toe in Golden Knights gear at all times. Maybe they just like the logo, I dunno, but if that's it then they must REALLY like the logo.

OrangeAfroMan · « **Reply #54 on:** March 24, 2023, 02:44:23 AM »

I got rid of letting a loss affect my mood after the game.......buuuut it's probably best I watch the game alone, lol.

Cincydawg · « **Reply #55 on:** March 24, 2023, 07:05:00 AM »

The crowd here at soccer games is 80+% Hispanic, they get into it. And they do pretty well on attendance.

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Topic: Fan base study

utee94

Re: Fan base study

medinabuckeye1

Re: Fan base study

utee94

Re: Fan base study

medinabuckeye1

Re: Fan base study

CatsbyAZ

Re: Fan base study

Riffraft

Re: Fan base study

utee94

Re: Fan base study

medinabuckeye1

Re: Fan base study

betarhoalphadelta

Re: Fan base study

medinabuckeye1

Re: Fan base study

utee94

Re: Fan base study

Brutus Buckeye

Re: Fan base study

OrangeAfroMan

Re: Fan base study

Cincydawg

Re: Fan base study