Big Blue Huddle

I was just curious about whatever came of like firmer St Louis Rams fans and who they root for now. They mostly hate the NFL and stopped watching. Some have adopted the Chiefs but many are resentful they are being forced down their throats with televised games and merchandise.

I then went a step further and started researching other even weirder fanbases and their geography.

It mostly turned up what you'd expect with the Cowboys but, there are a ton of Packers fans all around  and Steelers.

I guess Steelers makes some sense since I noticed a lot of older guys from my neighborhood in Queens NY were Steelers fans. I guess they grew up when both Giants and Jets were terrible.

Raiders also seem to have a national dan base. It's also really weird the Broncos fandom extends all the way up to Montana which I would expect that to be Seahawks.

Any other weird fan bases out there? When I went to school in AZ seems like no one cares about the Cardinals even though they are terrible back then.

So if you choose to play along your responses can be something like this for me it would be A queens NY

Jets / Giants / Steelers/ Cowboys/ Bills in that order

Quote from: Fletch on October 12, 2024, 03:35:41 PMI was just curious about whatever came of like firmer St Louis Rams fans and who they root for now. They mostly hate the NFL and stopped watching. Some have adopted the Chiefs but many are resentful they are being forced down their throats with televised games and merchandise.

I then went a step further and started researching other even weirder fanbases and their geography.

It mostly turned up what you'd expect with the Cowboys but, there are a ton of Packers fans all around  and Steelers.

I guess Steelers makes some sense since I noticed a lot of older guys from my neighborhood in Queens NY were Steelers fans. I guess they grew up when both Giants and Jets were terrible.

Raiders also seem to have a national dan base. It's also really weird the Broncos fandom extends all the way up to Montana which I would expect that to be Seahawks.

Any other weird fan bases out there? When I went to school in AZ seems like no one cares about the Cardinals even though they are terrible back then.

Growing up in North Jersey in the mid to late 70s to early 80s, with the Giants and Jets being as perennially bad as they were, many kids my age or older were Cowboy and Steeler fans as they were always on TV so it was easy to follow them. There were also Dolphins, Rams, Raiders and even Colts fans as well.

As a die-hard Giant fan, who used to go to the games at Giants Stadium with my father, and take a lot of heckling from my friends over following a "loser," 1981 and that regular season-ending drama-filled battle against the Cowboys in Giants Stadium, the 13-10 OT victory in the freezing, wind-swept stadium, was the moment for the ages for me. That game, the Wild Card victory at Philadelphia the next week, and a respectable showing in San Francisco the week after finally laid the groundwork for Giants fans to have their platform.

Today, as witnessed at away games across the nation, Giants fans come out in droves to support the team and are easily one of the top five strongest fan bases in the league today.

To your point, there's no question that the Cheeseheads are the most dedicated and passionate and make themselves heard loudly, nationwide, year after year.

Dallas "fans" generally make themselves known around the nation as well; however, they can be fickle when the team isn't winning. But they are definitely a top-five group.

Steelers remain in the top two or three nation-wide as well. They continue a long, valued tradition with their fans providing them among the best overall support the league has ever witnessed.

But St. Louis has always been a difficult fan-base to sustain a dedicated fan-base. It is definitely more of a baseball town.

Even here in Phoenix the local team struggles to compete with the opponent team's fans week after week. But when the Giants were here last season and we, in the stands, literally took over the building during the second half comeback, the local fans literally buried their heads in their wings; it was absolutely surreal!

So, the answer, at least from what I've witnessed, is surprisingly consistent from what I remember in the mid to late 1970s except that the Giants and Packers fans, especially, travel in greater volume today, or have relocated to other regions and support their team away than 40+ years ago. The reverse, I believe, may hold true for the Rams and Cardinals.

Peace!

I'm not so sure it seems to me like once a team leaves -- they are pretty much dead to their fans like Hartford Whalers fans do not become Carolina Hurricanes (or whatever they are) and Supersonics fans are not OKC Thunder fans,

THe only exception might the LA Dodgers. Although I guess part of it is at least they retained their name unlike the other 2 I just mentioned. But it just seems like when at Citi field 2 years ago they were playing the Dodgers and 1/2 the place was Dodgers fans. Of those I would say 1/2 were LA transplants ; younger hipster kinda people living in Willaimsburg and Manhattan but, they other 1/2 looked like older Brooklyn people who were I am guessing raised on the Brooklyn Dodgers by grandparents or parents?

It was really funny taking the train after the game; all the Mets fans got on the eastbound train going to North Queens and Long Island, and on the other side was all Dodgers fans going to Manhattan and brookln

To your earlier point, my mom lives in Wyoming and anyone lining near the mountains seems to be a Denver fan, from Albuquerque north. They truly are the Rocky Mountain Broncos.

Most of my relatives are in Minnesota and that fan base goes into North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and even Eastern Nebraska, yet oddly eastern Minnesota fans are mostly Packers fans in Rochester area in the south and and even mix of Packer and Vikings fans from Duluth north.

What is weird about this? 

So here is the map which spawned this and is admittedly is old now and I doubt is 100 percent accurate.




https://d36tnp772eyphs.cloudfront.net/blogs/1/2018/02/nfl-fan-map-us-counties.jpg

So ignoring the Rams -- which according to my reading are disgruntled and STL metro area do not follow them or anybody else pretty much IE do not watch NFL anymore ....

The only 3 maybe 4 weird ones are the Cowboys with their presence in Nevada ; the Packers who seem to skip geographic areas out side their area; and the Steelers which seem to have pockets of fans everywhere including NW Ohio; and even the Carolinas.

I guess I always thought Montana was a Seattle based place but, it also looks like Broncoes go all the way up there. Also I thought Hawaii was a LA based but looks to be 9ers territiory.

I like how the Jets are rep not at all. Even though I think they have Queens and LI from back in their Shea stadium days, Thankfully I was too young to remember them there si became a Giant fan as I always remember them playing in the Meadowlands. I also heard there are a lot of Giants / Jets fans up in Maine.

That map is wrong for Mississippi, North Mississippi is predominantly NY Giants fans, South Mississippi are Saints fans.

Have to remember a lot of Southern States follow college more than pro teams, so if a college hero goes to a specific team then they normally root for that team. I remember after Eli went to the Giants half of Mississippi became diehard Giants fans. So in the south Fandoms are really scattered where they are more territorial in the northeast.

Quote from: Jclayton92 on October 13, 2024, 01:51:31 PMThat map is wrong for Mississippi, North Mississippi is predominantly NY Giants fans, South Mississippi are Saints fans.

Have to remember a lot of Southern States follow college more than pro teams, so if a college hero goes to a specific team then they normally root for that team. I remember after Eli went to the Giants half of Mississippi became diehard Giants fans. So in the south Fandoms are really scattered where they are more territorial in the northeast.

Long before Eli, the Giants were big in Ole Miss country for another legendary quarterback: Charley Conerly.

Peace!

Quote from: kartanoman on October 13, 2024, 04:05:26 PMLong before Eli, the Giants were big in Ole Miss country for another legendary quarterback: Charley Conerly.

Peace!

Exactly

I remember that for the longest time, Houston was as inundated with Cowboy fans.

Why? Bud Adams ripped the heart out of Houston fans when he got pissy and left for Nashville. It took YEARS before the Texans started to reclaim the football fandom from the locals. To this day, Houston fans are pissed that Tennessee got to keep all the Oilers heritage/history.

It also didn't help that Houston had Texas and Texas A&M going through some competitive stretches (see the Vince Young era). The Texans were pretty awful until Schaub and JJ Watt arrived.

Quote from: Hadron on October 13, 2024, 04:14:28 PMI remember that for the longest time, Houston was as inundated with Cowboy fans.

Why? Bud Adams ripped the heart out of Houston fans when he got pissy and left for Nashville. It took YEARS before the Texans started to reclaim the football fandom from the locals. To this day, Houston fans are pissed that Tennessee got to keep all the Oilers heritage/history.

It also didn't help that Houston had Texas and Texas A&M going through some competitive stretches (see the Vince Young era). The Texans were pretty awful until Schaub and JJ Watt arrived.

Yes, lots of sad stories tied to that Houston Oilers team.

The Oilers having the Astrodome, an amazing place I did get to watch an Oilers football game when my family and I traveled to visit my Texas kinfolk in Houston back in 1977, a year before Earl Campbell came to the team. That was an awesome spectacle to visit. That and Houston's Astroland at the time. Hotter than the blazes for this young North Jersey kid, but I had the time of my life getting a taste of Texas culture. I still keep close with my kissin' cousin out there.

But back to the Astrodome and Earl Campbell winning the Heisman at UT and taking Houston and the NFL by storm. Had it not been for the legendary Pittsburgh Steelers, the stories we'd have today about the All-Texas Super Bowls between the Cowboys and Oilers would have been larger than life in that neck of the woods, and perhaps as great as the Pittsburgh-Dallas rivalry. The fact was that Earl Campbell carried that entire team on his back and nearly had a chance in 1979 except the Mike Renfro play, and the Steel Curtain, sealed the Oilers' fate that day. It drove Bum Phillips so crazy that, in 1980, he had a slogan for his team. He said something to the effect of "Last year we were knocking on the door, but this year we're gonna kick it in!" It was in reference to the Steelers, of course, and that he picked up Ken Stabler from the Oilers to lead the way. That 1980 season was crazy in that they finally got their revenge on the Steel Curtain; however, they missed the boat entirely on the Cardiac Kids from Cleveland sneaking past both of them for the AFC Central Title. At the end, Sam Rutigliano says, "Bum Phillips knocked on the WRONG DOOR!" It was the beginning of the end for Bum and, soon enough, Earl, in Houston.

The story about Warren Moon, the "Run and Shoot" Offense, Buddy Ryan and Kevin Gilbride, the Jeff Alm tragedy, the Bud Adams "threat" to produce or else break-up the team, Jack Pardee, etc. All of it an unmitigated runaway train disaster. Fans eventually stopped showing up. Bud took his toys to Tennessee and the ghosts of those Oilers' teams remain in the empty Astrodome to this very day. A lost era where great hopes went awry and inevitably because lost as well.

Peace!

New England was all Giants fans. Television carried their games up there including the NY blacked out home games. When the Boston Patriots started playing in 1960, they played their home games on Friday nights so they wouldn't compete with the Giants. You can still find some old timers that are still Giants fans up there.

So, the map confirms one thing.....there are no Jets fans. 

Quote from: bamagiantfan on October 13, 2024, 06:12:48 PMSo, the map confirms one thing.....there are no Jets fans. 

You mean that pack of "ladies" chasing Joe down Broadway? Do they count as "Jet" fans or are they classified as "Broadway Joe" fans?

I plead ignorance. I wasn't even born yet!

Peace!