Are sports team allegiances in your city/area culturally, geographically or generationally divided ?

[torontoblood]

I’m Just a curious man trying to learn something new.


I notice that some team fanbases clearly skew younger and blacker, or older and whiter. Some teams have more Hispanic or Asian fans per capita. Some teams probably have a disproportionate amount of female fans. Some teams bring all the ethnicities/races (white, black, asian etc) and all the generations together (boomers to gen Z)

Some teams somehow find a way to attract defined niche populations(the hipster and hippie crowds for example)




Does sports fandom pretty much comes down to demographics ? Different teams have different demographics and customers

Urban vs suburban
City vs country
City vs rest of province (Canada)
blue collar vs white collar
Yuppies vs working class
Democrats vs republicans
Immigrants vs born and raised natives
Wealthy vs poor

Click to read more...

 

[QuizGuy66]

Bad people root for (poster's rival)

Good people root for (poster's team)

 

[hotcabbagesoup]

There are so many Golden Knights fans in Northern California, it is mind-boggling.

 

[Kane One]

NYC… it’s complicated and inconsistent

 

[Coffees]

NYC… it’s complicated and inconsistent

Oh come on, everyone loves the Islanders

 

[Vegan Knight]

There are so many Golden Knights fans in Northern California, it is mind-boggling.

That seems odd, are these mostly northern Nevadans who moved to California recently since 2020 but I don't think that number would be very large?

I could see some southern Californians rooting for the Knights if they're easier and cheaper to see games with ESPN Plus instead of cable and if the drive to go to a game isn't that much more hassle than LA or Anaheim but northern California would be a surprise.

 

[lionsDen]

Colorado is all about the broncos

 

[mehavecable]

Yes...

For us in Toronto, it split between:

a) Old, pessimistic, defeated and bitter alcoholics who have never experienced a Stanley Cup victory on a colour TV.

b) Young, idealistic 20/30-somethings with disposable income who brazenly strut into opposition areas as make believe champions

Repeat and rinse every 10 years.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

Ottawa is interesting. A mix of a young team, a quiet city with a government worker mindset, and a lot of people in the area who are transplants to Ottawa (for work or school), and in the middle of two Original Six franchises (and the only two Canadian ones, at that)....it makes for a very unusual dynamic.

Ottawa also makes for a good case study for those who want to drop an NHL team in Hamilton or near the GTA. A ton of passionate hockey fans in the area does not guarantee an automatically strong fanbase for a new team in the area.

 

[ozzie]

I can't speak for anyone else, but for me. I bled blue for Toronto as a kid, until Steve Yzerman, who became my favourite player. Detroit then became my team away from Toronto. I find alot of people go with a player over anything else, doesn't matter where they are from. Mind you I also rooted for the Tigers against the Jays.

How many Quebec/Montreal fans became fans of the Penguins? I'd suspect a lot.

The hip/hop rap culture, just get Snoop Dog to wear an NHL jersey, bang. Several NHL fan bases have benefited from this. Cool, hip.

 

[Auston Marlander]

Yes...

For us in Toronto, it split between:

a) Old, pessimistic, defeated and bitter alcoholics who have never experienced a Stanley Cup victory on a colour TV.

b) Young, idealistic 20/30-somethings with disposable income who brazenly strut into opposition areas as make believe champions

Repeat and rinse every 10 years.

Where do I, 40 year old who enjoys watching hockey, understands that winning the cup is really hard and that any of the top teams can go on a run, but doesn't tie my entire identity to the team, nor does a bad loss ruin my night.

If I don't get my own category I either need to up my alcohol intake or find a way to get younger

 

[Oneiro]

Yeah, tri-state area - CT, NYC, NJ - is complicated. NYR, NYI, NJ, PHI, BOS, depending on who grew up where and when. I would include CAR in there as well but as I understand it, not too many Whalers fans jumped on the new franchise.

 

[BB79]

Boston...not really. Boston has a ton of colleges, so you sometimes get college kids going to school here from a different state who come in and rout for their home team, and if you start traveling to western MA or even RI you run into a fair amount of NY fans (mainly Yankees,Jets and Giants fans, not so much NHL/NBA NY fans)

I would imagine you would run into some Habs fans in northern NH/VT as well