Beckham actually played for the LA Galaxy. LAFC is much more of "the city's" team while the Galaxy is more of the suburbs team since they play in Carson.
As far as actual on-the-field impact in the MLSBeckham actually played for the LA Galaxy. LAFC is much more of "the city's" team while the Galaxy is more of the suburbs team since they play in Carson.
My uncle lives in the Woodland Hills area and is a long-time Clippers fan, so they do exist.
I find the broader NYC Area to be fascinating for this topic, specifically how drastically it could vary based on if you are in Connecticut, the New York Suburbs, the actual five boroughs, Long Island, New Jersey, etc. Is your area pretty decidedly UConn, or is there a bigger mix due to transplants and/or spillover from other regional teams?
Lived in Mooresville for 7 years in the mid 2000's. You are spot on. I would even maybe move NC State a little higher. Fun story, I was on a hiking trail with my wife in Jetton Park(Cornelius) and I was wearing my Chief logo hat. A couple went jogging by us and yelled I-L-L! Of course, I responded appropriately, and louder than my wife thought was appropriate. My wife(from Maine and has little interest in sports) looked at me and she says, you people are everywhere. I just smiled and said..."It's a beautiful thing". She rolled her eyes and laughed.
That's awesome! First thought as I started to read your hiking trail story was you were going to say you ran into Ron Turner there (who lives in the area but timeline doesn't work). Understand he did some consulting work for the Panthers when Rivera was HC there before retiring for good.
Curious if the omission of South Carolina was a mistake?? My sister lives in Charlotte, and I was surprised when we visited that a lot of stores that had apparel would feature the main four schools of North Carolina, NC State, South Carolina and Clemson.
They are in the mix for sure and could have mentioned them, but don't see them as much day-to-day where I am at as the other three schools you mention. In my head, include them in the same bucket as Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, Virginia Tech, etc. as schools you see around but not as much as the first several on my list.
I also remember South Carolina and UNC playing in Charlotte a couple years ago, and the crowd was about 60/40 South Carolina. Of course, that doesn't mean all that much, as a lot of fans for both teams traveled and do not live in the Charlotte Area. Hell, if we had played Wisconsin at Soldier Field five years ago, I bet their fans would have outnumbered ours 3:1 ... but now I bet we would easily be able to outnumber their fans. The enthusiasm of each fan base is obviously an essential variable, and Gamecocks fans are definitely "louder" than UNC fans in football, from what I have seen!
I sometimes stop to think about and appreciate the fact that every major sports team in Chicago has won at least one title in my lifetime...and there was a very long stretch of that life where I did not think it would happen. My dad's folks lived full lives into their 70s (mid-1910s to late-1980s) and cannot say that (they lived in Lake View and my grandma bled Cubbie blue for decades). No baseball or basketball titles for them (technically yes in 1917 with the Sox but they would have been toddlers at the time). Bears and Hawks did come through and win a few.
Here in the NE there aren't that many Division 1 basketball programs so UConn and St Johns dominate the college basketball scene, what little there is. Pro sports totally dominates the NY TV stations sports news with UConn and St Johns being the only college teams that get a mention.
Makes sense for hoops given UConn's incredible success over the last 30+ years and St. John's being a currently-successful program that is right there in the city. However, would you say it is way more diverse in football? I imagine there are a ton of bandwagon Notre Dame fans like in every city with a large Irish and/or Catholic population, but I am curious to hear if the rest has any sort of bias toward a Syracuse, Rutgers, even Penn State, etc. or if it is just truly random, like Michigan, Texas, Alabama, etc.
