By: Jordan Hansen [Activities Editor]
Watching sports is a great pastime for many people everywhere. It’s easy to want to connect with a large fanbase of other people who like the same team you do. There are many reasons for liking certain teams, and every fan usually has a story of why they put their support behind the team that they do. However, for every fan that has spent their entire lives rooting for a team, through the bad and the good, their is a person who just likes rooting for a team because it’s the popular thing to do.
Take last night for example. The BCS Championship between Alabama and Notre Dame took place in Miami last night and this game has been talked about for a long while now. It took two storied programs and put them against each other in a battle to win a National Championship. As one walked the halls yesterday it wasn’t entirely uncommon to see someone wearing a t-shirt from either team. But the question is, how many of those were fans before Alabama became so successful in the last 4 years? They won National Championships in 2009 and 2011 and suddenly became the next big thing to root for. Not to say that their wasn’t fans of Alabama before 2009, but it seems that there has been an increased following in the last several years. The idea of a “fair-weather fan” isn’t limited to football, but it seems that it happens most often in football.
What irks many true fans are these so-called “bandwagon fans” who root for the teams that are good. When those teams begin to not do as well, they find a new team to throw their support behind. This cycle just continues and it’s very common among people trying to fit in, especially teenagers. These bandwagon fans often annoy the die-hards with their incessant need to try and prove that they belong with the true fans. It’s simply not true. They like the team because everyone else likes the team, and they will stop liking them the second that they start to underperform.
Simply put, fair-weather and bandwagon fans are an insult to the teams that they support. One should not like a team because other people like them and it’s popular to be a fan of that team, but should like a team because for reasons that they come up with on their own. It’s not a crime to become a fan of a new team, but don’t be the person that likes a team simply because they have been to 3 national championships in the past 4 years.
