Your city's most-loved team

[Star Ocean 3 0]

It's kinda difficult with the Dodgers and Lakers, but I really think that the Dodgers are L.A.'s biggest love. I think it's partly economical. The Lakers are about Showtime, superstars, and expensive tickets. The Dodgers are usually underdogs, and their biggest hero is Kirk Gibson. Almost anyone could afford a World Series ticket. What's interesting is that these two teams represent the parallel universes of L.A. The Lakers have the glamour, which is an easy view of Los Angeles on the surface, and thus an easy reason to choose them, but the Dodgers are for the meat of the city; the hard-working and the lazy, the ones getting screwed by the LAPD and chickenshit tickets, the ones that want to forget about the smog burning their eyes for 3 hours.

It's really no use comparing the two, but Vin Scully is more universally loved than Chick Hearn. It's the innocent story-telling that has really gripped people from childhood.

The Dodgers also have an enemy, and with that the best rivalry in baseball. There's a lot of frustration building up in Los Angeles, as well as, let's face it, dangerous people. Directing all that anger at the Giants is the outlet that L.A. needs. The Lakers have the interesting dynamic of the Clippers and the hope of a Hallway Series, but there's really no hate there. There are the Celtics, but they just beat the Lakers every time, and are too far away.

[bob_barron 0]

I think we've done this thread before, but in New York it's the Yankees....and then everyone else.

 

Even with the Giants winning the Super Bowl, I'd say New York is still about the Yankees. I do think for a brief period in the early-mid 90s, the Knicks were able to supplant them.

[Brett Favre 0]

I think the Knicks are pretty close to the Yankees. They're still selling out some games as a shitty team, and the city went crazy when they made the Finals in '99.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

The Colts.

The Colts The Colts The Colts The Colts.

 

The Colts.

 

I have photographed high school seniors, entire families, even their pets in their Indianapolis Colts gear.

 

The Colts.

[foleyfanforever88 0]

The Whalers..

[Guest Smues]

Easily the Aces. But they are also about all we have. The Aces, two baseball teams no one pays attention to, and ... I can't think of anything else. UAA basketball team is a joke too, they only get noticed during the Great Alaskan Shootout, which is going to suck this year anyway.

[Zetterberg is God 0]

The Flames by far as they have no real competition.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

The only professional sports team within a 150-mile radius is the Portland Trail Blazers, so I guess they win by default. If we expand this to include college sports, then it's Oregon Ducks football and it's not particularly close.

 

Technically we also have the Portland Beavers and Salem Volcanoes, but no one really pays attention to them. Minor league baseball is barely a blip on the radar in this area.

[bob_barron 0]

I think the Knicks are pretty close to the Yankees. They're still selling out some games as a shitty team, and the city went crazy when they made the Finals in '99.

 

Not anymore though. They may announce sellouts but the arena looks half empty

[Guest Vitamin X]

Definitely the Portland Trailblazers. Some wankers here like to co-opt Seattle's teams as their own, but it pisses me off to do that- Seattle is NOT fucking Portland. The Seahawks and Mariners are NOT your teams, they're a 3 hour drive from here and we're not even coastal to boot, so the nicknames don't make sense. Portland also embraces the Oregon college teams quite a bit, but "Rip City" is what this city is all about. Also, Portlanders are generally very excited to best anything that comes from California, and that doesn't just include the world of sports.

 

The Portland Timbers are actually a pretty strong #2 here, and the Beavers (AAA Baseball) get quite a bit of love as well, though not as much as the other two.

[migoli 0]

In Minnesota its the Vikings no doubt. I don't understand why, they have never done a thing and rarely are a factor and just do dumb dumb thinks like the whole Love Boat thing and all the other arrests. As a hardcore Twins guy I hate the month of September sometimes because ALL the attention goes to the Vikings. I mean during training camp the local sports talk radio show I listen to at work was doing play by play of PRACTICE!! We are talking about practice people! All while the Twins were in the closest race in baseball this year.

[bob_barron 0]

Living in Toronto it was the Leafs and then everyone else, of course. The other teams seemed to exist just in case you couldn't get tickets to a Leafs game.

[Guest]

The Lakers are ahead of the Dodgers, but not by a whole lot.

[Guest C*Z*E*C*H]

Dodgers-Giants? When was the last time both of these teams were concurrently good? Star Ocean 3 is quite obnoxious. Besides, I thought he was a big Angels fan. Why is he waxing poetic about the Dodgers?

 

[sfaJack 0]

Maybe he saw the "Los Angeles" label and got the two teams confused.

[naiwf 0]

My pick is the NY Football Giants. Half of New York's sports fans HATE the Yankees so I think that disqualifies them from being the city's most loved franchise. Jets fans hate the Giants but there's only about 8 of them that live in the city. Hockey has fallen off of the map since the strike, and the Knicks are on life support. IF they ever get back to prominence they could vie for the top spot again. Back in the early '90s they were number 1 since the baseball teams were not great and after the Giants fell off a bit they were THE team in the city. Had they won in '94 along with the Rangers that would have been almost as awesome as the Oct. '86- Jan. '87 run of the Mets and Giants.

[bob_barron 0]

There's tons of Jets fans in New York, what are you talking about? I think it's:

 

1) Yankees

2) Giants

3) Jets

4) Mets

5) Rangers

6) Knicks

[Prophet of Mike Zagurski 0]

I'm not really sure about my area because I live 30 minutes away from both Anaheim and Los Angeles. I guess this would be Dodgers territory. I see lots of Raiders decals on trucks so I think this is Raiders territory also.

[Maztinho 0]

Jazz

[naiwf 0]

There's tons of Jets fans in New York, what are you talking about? I think it's:

 

1) Yankees

2) Giants

3) Jets

4) Mets

5) Rangers

6) Knicks

 

Long Island is not part of NYC. Most of the Jets fanbase lives in LI, Westchester and New Jersey. There's no way that there are more Jets fans than Mets fans in the city.

[Broward83 0]

I think in Houston, its the Texans. Could go with the Astros but along with the Rockets, the city tends to be a bit band-wagonish to those two and only really show up to games when the teams are doing well and have a chance of doing something big.

 

Aeros? No one really gives a fuck about them. Comets? Last I heard, about to be bought out and moved..plus they no longer play in Toyota Center and play at I think the Reliant Astro Arena which proves that no one cares.

 

Oh, for the huge Mexican / Hispanic / Latin America group of Houstonian's, I guess its the Dynamo...which is evident since they turned out in droves to piss and moan about the team being called Houston 1836.

 

College is split between Houston / Rice..but most of the support is split between either Texas or AnM which I feel is like that across the entire state, to be honest.

[Guest C*Z*E*C*H]

Half of New York's sports fans HATE the Yankees so I think that disqualifies them from being the city's most loved franchise.

But consider how much the other half loves them. It can't not be the Yankees.

 

There's tons of Jets fans in New York, what are you talking about? I think it's:

 

1) Yankees

2) Giants

3) Jets

4) Mets

5) Rangers

6) Knicks

 

Long Island is not part of NYC. Most of the Jets fanbase lives in LI, Westchester and New Jersey. There's no way that there are more Jets fans than Mets fans in the city.

Does this matter? Whenever we discuss sports demographics, there's rarely any important distinction between city proper and outlying cities. Greater New York, Greater L.A., so on down the line. I still have a patch of scalp missing from the last time I tried to explain that there's no such thing as an "Anaheim team"; it is one suburb, albeit a large one, in Greater Los Angeles.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Czech, sorry dude. As a former Angeleno, I'll have to say Anaheim is most definitely not part of what I would consider Greater Los Angeles. Although the distance is much greater, it's like saying Racine, WI is a suburb of Chicago. The cultural disconnect between Los Angeles County and Orange County is much greater than you would think, I mean OC is like the buffer zone between Los Angeles and San Diego. They have their own thing going on down there, and it's very different from L.A. It pissed me off when I heard that the Angels co-opted the Los Angeles name into their whole thing. That's like saying Salem, OR is part of the Greater Portland metropolitan area (the distance is about equal in that case, Portland-Salem::L.A.-Anaheim) which it most certainly isn't. Long Beach you could say for sure, the San Fernando Valley, Hollywood, Inglewood, Santa Monica, hell even Santa Clarita counts as Los Angeles. Anaheim? No sir.

[Gert T 0]

As far as in town teams, by a long shot

 

 

 

Dayton Flyers Basketball

UD.bmp

[Guest C*Z*E*C*H]

The Angels co-opted Los Angeles because as per Major League Baseball territorial maps, the Angels' territory is and always has been coterminous with that of the Dodgers. They advertise in Los Angeles media, they are covered by Los Angeles media, they have been, since their inception, Los Angeles's American League team. I don't care what kind of "thing" they do. It's not a freestanding metropolis. Whether the people vote Republican or drive far to work, Orange County is Greater Los Angeles, and the Angels are doing nothing wrong. That's the end.

 

As for Racine, that's connected to Milwaukee, with Kenosha going to Chicago.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

That's like saying Salem, OR is part of the Greater Portland metropolitan area (the distance is about equal in that case, Portland-Salem::L.A.-Anaheim) which it most certainly isn't. Long Beach you could say for sure, the San Fernando Valley, Hollywood, Inglewood, Santa Monica, hell even Santa Clarita counts as Los Angeles. Anaheim? No sir.

Salem isn't a part of the Portland metro area, but as far as sports allegiances are concerned it might as well be. I'll even take that one step further and say that the Mariners and Seahawks are very much the "local" teams for people in the Salem, Eugene, and Bend areas. Sure, the physical distances are large, but all of those cities definitely fall within the sphere of influence of those mentioned. That's why we get local feeds for their games and beat writers covering them for our newspapers.

 

Also, I grew up outside of LA, with family residing in both Anaheim and LA proper. I never found there to be any distinction between the two areas, real or imagined. The Dodgers and Angels were both LA teams, even before the weird LA of Anaheim nonsense.

[RepoMan 0]

 

This AAA franchise dates it's origins all the way back to 1899, perhapes the most storied minor league franchise. Notable alumni include Frank Robinson, Cal Ripken Jr, Joe Altobolli, Bobby Grinch, most of the current Minnnisota Twins. Is community owned, a la the Green Bay Packers.

[Guest C*Z*E*C*H]

The Dodgers are usually underdogs, and their biggest hero is Kirk Gibson.

Jackie Robinson and Sandy Koufax, numbnuts.

[JaMarcus Russell's #1 Caucasian Fan 0]

I'll rank the major LA sports teams according to coverage in the media and popularity:

 

1. Lakers- By far the most popular and most covered team in the region and it's not even close. The love/hate relationship the media has with Kobe Bryant is insane.

2. Dodgers- A year or two ago, I would have ranked the Dodgers way lower. The Fox group made this team almost irrelevant in this city, and the media hates the McCourts for some reason, but IMO, the McCourts have done a nice job rehabilitating the team's image. Getting Joe Torre was a great move, but landing Manny and winning in the playoffs for the first time in 20 years has Los Angeles caring about it's beloved baseball team in ways I have never seen in my sports watching lifetime.

3. (Anaheim) Angels- Before 2002, nobody gave a shit about this team. After 2002, it seems everyone is an Angels fan. The media here trips over itself praising Arte Moreno and always seem to compare with the Dodgers and the Angels in the most unflattering way possible. Gets good coverage in the local media.

4. USC Trojan football- This is Los Angeles' de facto pro football team. Gets insane coverage and good press here for a college team. Everyone who plays for the Trojans is a superstar, in there own right. UCLA is a way distant second right now.

5. UCLA Bruin football- They are down right now, but when good they are just as popular as USC (everyone is either a Trojan or Bruin fan here).

6. UCLA Bruin basketball- Three Final Four appearances in three seasons. Have captured some of the prestige they lost since their last NCAA title in 1995. John Wooden is a living legend in basketball circles out here.

7. Clippers- A sad excuse for a pro franchise. The media's favorite punching bag here. Nobody here cares about the Clippers except for the diehards.

8. Kings/Ducks- 15 years ago, hockey was HOT here in LA. After Gretzhy left, hockey's popularity has dwindled save for some moments. It's sad to see, because the King's are a joke and the Duck's are ignored. The media rarely mentions anything about hockey save for the box scores, standings and scant beat writer reports.

 

 

Edit: For Darthtiki.

[geniusMoment 0]

Judging by GABP whenever they come to town I'd say the Cubs.