Being a sports fan is far from what anyone could call a predictable science, and often sports fans don't make that much sense. We'll root against teams simply because it's our obligation as a fan of a certain team, and we don't like certain players regardless of how nice they may be or the things they've gone through. As a fan of the 4 major American sports, I can say without a doubt that all of the above apply to me. Before I begin, however, I'd like to contextualize by saying my favorite team in these sports are the Green Bay Packers (football), the Indiana Pacers (basketball), the Cincinnati Reds (baseball), and the Pittsburgh Penguins (hockey).
Having said all of this, the first thing I'd like to address on this topic is the fact that my reasons for liking all of these teams are pretty varied. For the Pacers and Reds, it makes sense because I am from the Hoosier state and the Pacers are in Indiana and the Reds are just across the state line in Ohio, so geographically it makes sense to root for my local teams.
My fandoms of the Packers and Penguins have different origin stories. As for my Packers, I remember this like it was yesterday. My parents and I were at a car dealership buying a car. It was January of 2008, and while my parents were doing paperwork, I was in the waiting area, watching tv. It was the Packers and Seahawks in the divisional round of the playoffs. The Packers were down 14-0 when I started watching, and they came back and won the game 42-20. It was the first game I remember watching Brett Favre play, and it was captivating. Between the way that he could fit the ball into tight spots to the plays he could improvise, I was hooked. And from that point forward, I was a Packers fan.
The Penguins are a far shorter story. They were the first team I remember watching play hockey on tv, which was in 2009, and my uncle really liked the Penguins and so I jumped on the bandwagon and have never really jumped off since.
With all of my fandoms stated, it's a given that there are some teams that simply cannot be rooted for unless it gives my team some kind of advantage (playoff seeding). Being a Pacers fan, I absolutely can't like the Knicks, the Bulls, the Pistons, the Cavaliers, and until recently the Heat. As for the Reds, I can't root for the Cardinals, Cubs, Brewers, or Pirates. The Pirates are complicated, however, because their triple A affiliate, the Indianapolis Indians, are right in town and I root for them, and then their players go to Pittsburgh, so it's a slippery slope. With the Packers, I can't root for the Bears, Lions, or Vikings,and in hockey, I can't root for the Flyers, Capitals, Red Wings, Islanders or Rangers. And all of these ones are just the teams I am obligated to hate. There are plenty more that I don't like at all, believe me.
With liking or disliking the individual players, often times people will question the reasoning behind it. For example, I don't like Steph Curry at all. My reasoning for it, as silly as it sounds, is because everybody likes Steph Curry. I don't want to be on the bandwagon late because it makes me look like a bad fan, and it's just fun to be the guy that roots against everyone else.
A dislike of mine that does make sense is Richard Sherman. I cannot stand Richard Sherman. For those who don't know, he is a player on the Seahawks most known for yelling about Michael Crabtree in a postgame interview after the NFC Championship game, telling everyone how he was the best cornerback in the game. He is one of the loudest mouths in the NFL, and he is just beyond arrogant to me. Once someone asked me how I could dislike the guy, and I said because he's a loudmouth and he's arrogant. When the person responded about how he came out of Compton and went to Stanford, my thought process was that I'm glad he made it out, but being a sports fan, I still wouldn't like the guy. To further the case for Richard Sherman as a great person, Sherman has a foundation that provides students in low-income communities with clothes and school supplies to achieve their goals, and he helps families who can't buy Christmas presents by going Christmas shopping with him. Off the field, Richard Sherman is a great person, but as I said before, I still cannot like the guy.
The more I've analyzed my own fandom, the more I realize that there is a lot of hypocrisy in being a sports fan. My favorite athlete of all time is Aaron Rodgers. He has been the Packers QB basically since I started watching them, but he is a guy who has been known to be all about himself. Lately, this has become more public as his brother is on the Bachelorette, and it has been stated that Aaron has lost contact with his family the last several years. On the field, Rodgers does the championship belt move that eventually became a marketing piece for State Farm as the discount double check. If he played for a different team, I would despise Aaron Rodgers, but because he's my team's quarterback I love him.
When thinking about sports fans, objectively it seems silly. People like the "edgy" players on your team but not on the others, people root against people because of a uniform, and there are lots of times when the fandom a person has isn't because they're the team closest in proximity to your home. If there's one thing that is clear about sports fandoms, it's that often times it really doesn't make all that much sense.
