Makes sense. Like I hinted in my first post, I imagine one major barrier is travel. I follow "non-league" football now and again, and I remember one team from the south being crippled for a season because certain promotions landed them in a northern division, putting costs up dramatically for a club that size and making game prep much tougher. And that's in a country where pretty much anywhere is accessible within England in half a day's drive. It's easy to sustain a lot of small budget amateur teams when every where in the North of England is probably within three hours of you.

And nobody would watch a college game here.

This is the correct answer. Best QB in the game, exciting offense, great fan base. And they're gonna win the super bowl this year.

No. It's like the (unqualified==baseball) Cardinals moving to Chicago, Ohio State playing their home games in Ann Arbor, or the Red Sox moving to northern New Jersey.

No. No it's not. San Diego != LA. Santa Clara, Oakland, and San Francisco are all part of the greater San Francisco area.

Do you think I have Stockholm Syndrome?

Obviously, you ain't from Cali. As a San Diegan, it's pretty simple... no LA teams (all sports), in the NFL no Raiders (regardless of location), and no whichever team Eli Manning plays for (aka Football Giants). In addition, if you live at the beach (which I do), no Arizona teams (all sports).

Plus this: Green Bay Packers - Publicly Owned, Non Profit Corporation

Quote:

The Green Bay Packers have been a publicly owned, non-profit corporation since August 18, 1923. The corporation currently has 360,760 stockholders, who collectively own 5,011,558 shares of stock after the last stock sale of 2011–2012.

....

The corporation is governed by a seven-member Executive Committee, elected from among the board of directors. The committee directs corporate management, approves major capital expenditures, establishes board policy and monitors management's performance in conducting the business and affairs of the corporation.

The elected president, currently Mark H. Murphy, represents the corporation at the NFL owners meetings and other league functions. The president is the only officer who receives compensation. The balance of the committee is sitting gratis.

Yeah. By every objective standard, the Packers are the choice, AINEC.

Instead of being run by some odious and evil interbred carpetbagging family... they are community owned. They even have rules against some fool trying to seize control by buying up all the shares. They are never going to move. They don't pull the stadium scam (it's "funny" how the iconic Lambeau Field is a decade older than the "obsolete" Q... what a buncha crap). They are a non-profit, so they reinvest everything back into the team. They'd even have much lower ticket prices... except the other NFL owners force them to raise their prices every season to the NFL median.

And... as a bonus, they're good right now, being led by Golden Bear and future HOFer A.Rodgers. What's not to like? I really should change the title to "If you can't pick the Packers, what NFL team would you pick".

Bwahahahahahahahahahaha...

Bhwahahahahahahahaha. Oh wait, it gets better...

Well, there's always Phoenix... oh wait, San Diego is Phoenicians favorite city. Maybe Vegas... oh wait, ditto. San Francisco... ditto. OK, maybe Denver.

The die hard Rams friends that I have have just sworn off the NFL completely. I was a casual rams fan, but since there's no more local coverage of the team I don't think that will last long. Most people are happy that they left because the stadium deal was horrible.

TYVM. Two seasons ago there was a vocal minority who vowed to become fans of the LA Football Clippers, if it came to that. If the move was to anywhere else than LA, that group of peeps would have been much larger. The majority considered this to be a slap on the face of our home town, a slap that far transcends sport. The destination being LA is seen as rubbing our noses in it.

That conversation got quite divisive. Enough so that it was banned from my local. This last season I've heard very few peeps saying they'd back the Football Clippers. Since Thursday I've heard zero. They are still among us, of course... but they are wisely keeping a very low profile right now.

On the same note, there were three cool dudes from Boston watching the playoff games at my local. They started carrying on about how our former team sucked and lost to the Browns. I took them aside, and said "not now". Have some respect for the recently deceased. Think about how you would feel if the Red Sox moved to Staten Island. They said "ZOMG", and we were all then drinking buddies.

I think they call this the denial stage. Anyways, of course a way will be found to get the gear to Costa Mesa, and of course there is no basis for this legal action (below). It's all silly. However, it does illustrate quite nicely where peeps minds are at right now.

OK, it's been a week. Maybe us San Diegans have passed out of the Silly Stage, and have arrived at the Lifelong Seething Anger Stage of grief. So let's move this thread along... how many favorite teams are appropriate?

• Zero: As discussed above, zero is an obvious answer. However, for the right peeps, those who can "freeroll", there may be better options.
• One: Standard.
• Two: See below.
• Three or more: This is just ridiculous.

Let's discuss having two favorite teams. As far as I'm concerned, in general, having two teams is just wrong. However, in a few very special cases, IMO it can be justified. In fact, between me and my dog Sabo, we have two MLB, and two FBS teams.

In MLB we've got a NL and an AL team. Before 1997, and the start of interleague play, as far as I'm concerned, you could have teams in each league. If you claimed favorite teams in both leagues back then, you are grandfathered in. Now with interleague play, this option is no longer available.

In FBS, we've got a Pac-12 and a Mountain West team. The story here is my alma matter (UCSD) doesn't play football. I have nominal ties to the FBS teams, having attended one for a semester, and working for tthe other for a semester. In addition, the teams are in different conferences, and are not rivals (like Colorado vs Colorado State). This option doesn't apply to pro sports.

So... what are my fellow Politards opinions here? Are there any other justifications for having multiple favorite teams? And what of this theory: I played by the NFL's rules all those years, the NFL owners raped me & my home town, so now I get to makeup the rules ??

Steelers lost. Kind'a bummed.

My Packers lost too. ****ing Falcons, go figure.

I have a favorite team in each NFL division. Sometimes 2. Makes season much more fun.

These references initially threw me for a loop.

However, it turns out this refers to third-tier Sheffield United FC Blades (est 1889), and second-tier Sheffield Wednesday FC Owls (est 1867). The Blades play at 32609 seat Bramall Lane (1855) in Sheffield, while the Owls play at 39732 seat Hillsborough Stadium (1899) in the suburb of Owlerton. The metro area population of Sheffield is ~1.6M... larger than NFL markets Jacksonville, New Orleans, Buffalo, and of course Green Bay.

I'm repeating the above three questions with the hope they might get some feedback at some point. Of course, the feedback might be what I getting so far... in other words no1curr. Moving right along, it's about time to get to the heart of the question: what reasons do peeps actually use to pick favorite teams. So far ITT we have...

In addition, this very well written Wiki: How to Choose a Favorite Football Team both lists several reasons, and even lays out an algorithim for making the pick. The reasons listed are (1) A team where you live, or the closest team if there isn't one where you live. (2) A team from where you grew up. (3) For College sports, your alma mater. (4) The team your parents support. (5) The team with a mascot or uniforms you like. (6) An underdog. (7) The team with your favorite player or coach. (8) Pick a winning team.

What I'll do if I get some feedback here is this: compile a master list from the above, from that feedback, and a few more I already have in mind. So I'll through the floor open to my fellow Politards once again: Are there any more reasons you can think of that peeps use to pick their favorite teams ??

Well football season is over, just like this thread. Some of us fans were lusers, some just won the Superb Owl. For the record, I did get around to actually picking myself a new favorite NFL team...