what team(s) should i root for: episode i

this is the first post, in a series of posts, that will explore the methods used by a sports fan for establishing what team(s) she roots for and which team(s) she roots against. in doing so, i am hoping that the this guy knows what i'm talking about family (which includes, but is not limited to the writers and readers of this blog) will be self-aware and self-critical of the reasons they choose to root for the teams that they do. in this first installment, i will be looking at the most obvious reasons a sports fan would use for picking her favorite team(s).

geography
most sports fans root for teams near them. this makes sense for a number of reasons: pride in one's city, developing a common language among neighbors and co-workers, access to infomation about the teams (both in temrs of media coverage as well as having the option of physically attending games) and family tradition, to name a few. this seems an appropriate reason for rooting for a specific team. there are, however, a couple of possible problems with rooting for the home team. when tied up in the minute issues of the home team, you may miss exciting players and/or trends in other cities. also, with most of your neighbors and co-workers rooting for the same team, it's easy to slip into a group think mentality that may impact your ability to view the home team, as well as other teams, objectively.

players
aaron's piece gives some guidelines for choosing favorite players. once you've chosen your favorite players, it's only natural to cheer for the teams those players play for. this way of choosing your favorite teams seems pretty solid. actually, it's only as solid as your reasons for liking the players that you like.

nostalgia
many sports fans choose teams to like when they're young and then just stick with it. for instance, the first football game i ever remember watching was the super bowl where chicago beat new england. after that, my favorite football team was the bears. today, i still find myself rooting for the bears for no other reason than because i liked them as a kid. well, that and because their color scheme is pretty cool. but since i've been able to identify my nostalgia as the source of my like, i've been able to reevaluate the bears. now i like them because of their color scheme.

bandwagoning
many sports fans use their sports teams as supplements to their fragile egos. in these cases, they tend to choose teams who do reasonably well year after year so they can identify with their teams winning ways. i used to live with a kid like this. his favorite team was the 49ers back when the 49ers were good. each week he'd talk about how awesome he was because the team he rooted for, the 49ers, continued to win, while the bears, my favorite team at the time, contiued to lose. this was proof that he was a better human being than i was. and while he was probably correct about being a better human being, it wasn't because he liked the 49ers.