NFL Worst fanbases

[fgssand]

Very easy to separate band wagoners from knowledgeable fans........ask them to name two members of practice squad and one coach other than BB.

NE fan base had an initial jump back in the mid 60's when the "champions without a crown" team filled with Holovak and early stars were actually getting some endorsements - (Patriot players on bottle caps). That quickly gave way to the poor teams that followed for several years.

Then came the bump in the mid 70's with Chuck Fairbanks in charge, the "roughing" screwing in Oakland (if Russ Francis stays onside, Sugar bears play never would have happened. Of course, the Sullivan's couldn't figure out how to keep Fairbanks happy and it was game over. Once again, momentum dissolved with mediocrity and worse.

Along came Raymond Berry and we really had something going - THIS is where many fans joined and never left. For the first time we made it to the Superbowl fueled by their history making run of three in a row on the road in the playoffs. There were tents all over New England selling Patriot merchandise, "Berry the bears", "squish the fish"

When that '86 team ran out of gas a few years later, the momentum and fan base they electrified, in my opinion, never really left. Yes, attendance was sparse during the 1-15, 2-14 seasons - much of that had to do with the venue, of course the team, the unruly fan behavior - I recall leaving many a game telling my kids, OK , lets go home and watch real NFL football.

Then of course, along came Parcells/Bledsoe/Kraft/BB&SP/Brady and company and successes beyond belief.

My point is, each decade along the way more and more fans came on board and stayed - it is human nature for everybody to love a winner and that's OK by me, jump on the bandwagon, plenty of room. The most loyal of the fan base are the charter members and the ones that stock with their team through good times and bad - they get the seats on the bus. I think here in NE - we now have as many loyal fans as anywhere else in the NFL.

By the way - were you able to identify a coach and 2 practice squad without looking it up?

 

[Kontradiction]

Touche back at you.

In all seriousness, the ranking is hard to dispute. We have a solid core fanbase, but its a matter of getting a couple more thousand of those to secure the franchise's ticket situation. Its going to take time and establishment of tradition.

Well isn't Jacksonville Municipal one of the bigger stadiums in the league to accomodate for the Florida/Georgia game (which I will be tanked at the Landing for)? That could loan some explanation as to why the seats are never completely filled. I actually went to the Jags/Panthers game last year because I was dragged there by my buddy and that place was a ghost town.

 

[SamusAranX]

You know this how? I'm quite sure you didn't attend many (any) Pats games, or do you live in this area? Therefore met and spoke with many NE fans,right? I didn't think so. My bet is-you're another one who doles out fan cred and measures a fan base by how much activity exists on an internet message board. Feel free to correct me if I've jumped to a wrong conclusion.

My dad's had season tix ever since I can remember. I've been to Foxboro Stadium as a little girl-he warned my brother and me that if we had to go to the bathroom to do it before we went in then don't ask to go again until before the 4th quarter LOL. It was cold, our team sucked, people were drunk and yelling obsenities...it was Nastyyy. But one thing was for sure- everybody there was a passionate fan.

My dad still has those season tix and my brothers and I still argue about which games we want once the parents have chosen theirs.

The fanbase definitely has increased since 01 and prices have gone up considerably, but that's not to say fans "were hard to find" before 01. Internet interaction has boomed even since 01. That's not a measure of fanbase; that's simply a measure of lifestyle.

I actually lived in Rhode Island for a year and a half.

 

[SamusAranX]

Well isn't Jacksonville Municipal one of the bigger stadiums in the league to accomodate for the Florida/Georgia game (which I will be tanked at the Landing for)? That could loan some explanation as to why the seats are never completely filled. I actually went to the Jags/Panthers game last year because I was dragged there by my buddy and that place was a ghost town.

Yes, the stadium was built so large for that and a festival of some sorts. Basically, it was too large for the market, and that is why the tarps went on. Now that the tarps are on, its much closer to proper size, but still...no excuses. Those seats need to be filled, every game.

 

[SunnyDenmark]

Interesting discussion. Welcome Jags fan - beat the Colts at least once this year please.

My take on the whole fanbase issue has to do with media explosion. Back in the old days - pre internet. You got news about your team via the local newspapers and of course local radio and hopefully local tv broadcasts (If the game sold enough seats to avoid blackout).

IF the team does well, it stands to reason more seats will be sold and less chance of TV blackouts which will increase your fan base. (Football is definatley a game that is much better viewed than just heard on radio).

But still the boundries of local TV, radio and newspaper coverage is geographically limited. As one who has lived in 5 different regions of the US, it was difficult to follow PATS (pre- internet) living outside of NE. Had to root for Monday Night matchups which were few and far between.

Now in the internet age - I can follow the Pats from the comfort of my living room in Copenhagen, Denmark. I read all the stories. Can view all the games over the internet, and such.

Naturally this applies to all fans anywhere in the US. So those one-time New Englanders who have moved away (and may have fallen off the wagon) can jump on again and follow Pats every step of the way. And those other football fans (who never lived in NE to get the local media exposure to players and most importantly the games ) people who just like to root for someone (like me who always has to pick someone to root for in any competition - even if it is ridiculous as Darts) - those fans can choose and follow with ease ANY team in the country. And stay abreast of the day to day news and catch many of the games either on the internet or local TV , or just go to a sports bar and catch one of the 10 different satellite feeds one of which is bound to be showing the Pats.

So with this great media exposure to ANY NFL team - who do you think is more interesting to follow - a team with a perennial losing record and constant coaching (and player) carousel ? Or a team with stability, team players, constant entrance into the playoffs (Super Bowl derby) and a stud good-looking QB?

Why WOULDN'T any out-of-towner want to follow the Pats, Steelers, Elway Bronchos, Romo Cowboys, etc. Who wants now a days to follow the 49ers, Cardinals, Rams, Bengals, etc. Most people are not masochists.

 

[Leave No Doubt]

I know one thing- Bob Kraft and the Pats organization don't mind bandwagoners and new fans. As far as they're concerned I'm sure it's "the more the merrier". Odds are there's a certain predicted percentage of them who'll get hooked into some degree of true fandom and stick.

That said, remember what Brady said last February at the sendoff-nasty weather that day. Something like "the true fans are here-I wish we could play the game right now".

But marketability can't stand still so there'll always be (hopefully) new fans everyday. It's not so much about new fans as it is the type of fans they are. Some are just more cerebral and pc'd than others. It's all good, as long as CBS doesn't start doing "Pats Appeal" LOL

 

[zoostation]

Funny...Pats fans were hard to find before 2001.

Season tix in my family since 1971. I've had my own tix sinse 1993. I just love football. No bandwagoner here!

 

[MiChargers]

How true.
This is from today's Globe NFL Notes:

. . The Chargers were granted a 24-hour extension by the NFL to try to sell 600 remaining tickets and lift the local television blackout of their opener vs. the Panthers.



When will you people get it? The driving issue for the non-sellouts is the locality of SD. You have how many states to encompass your fan base?? We're geographically limited by the ocean to the west, mexico to the south, the desert/AZ fans to the east, and Raider fans to the north (LA). It boggles my mind how people dont get this. You have multiple states. We have one county. Do the math.

Not to mention, we have a plethora of things in this city that take away from potential seats being filled. This is sunny SD and you're in cold, not much to do, Boston. Hey, I've been to Boston, the town's cool. I love all its history. But, there's just more to do here. And it shows up in the late filled seats at Jack Murphy. They always sell out these days, so why does this worry you? Does it make Chargers fans less of a fan that its not sold out the day before? Nope, they already have their seats and will be in 'em watching the game.

 

[SamusAranX]

Season tix in my family since 1971. I've had my own tix sinse 1993. I just love football. No bandwagoner here!

Good to hear. It's fans like you who helped the Patriots in their relative early years keep the franchise going and build tradition.

 

[spacecrime]

When will you people get it? The driving issue for the non-sellouts is the locality of SD. You have how many states to encompass your fan base?? We're geographically limited by the ocean to the west, mexico to the south, the desert/AZ fans to the east, and Raider fans to the north (LA). It boggles my mind how people dont get this. You have multiple states. We have one county. Do the math.

Typical ignorant charger fan. It isn't that you have one city, it is your city has crappy fans.

San Diego is the eighth largest city in the US by population.

There are more people within 5 miles of your stadium than almost every other NFL stadium. Do the math.

You have more people within 30 miles of your stadium than most other stadiums, most of which sell out.

Green Bay has about a tenth the population of San Diego and it sells out every game and has a huge waiting list.

You have the numbers. You just don't have a decent fan base.

Do the math.

 

[spacecrime]

Very easy to separate band wagoners from knowledgeable fans........ask them to name two members of practice squad and one coach other than BB.

By the way - were you able to identify a coach and 2 practice squad without looking it up?

Christ. I know all the current Pats position coaches and who they replaced and the whole practice squad and almost everyone who was on the practice squad over the last few years. I need a friggin' life.

 

[Joker]

Patjew is our Far East scout and Keegs and Patriot Reign man the practice squad...next question

 

[TommyD4207]

I'm relatively young, but I attended games when Marc Wilson was throwing to Hart Lee Dykes.

Did Dykes even play in multiple games for that to happen?

 

[cincipatsfan]

Some of the posts in this thread are the height of arrogance

or ignorance.....hard to tell the difference

 

[lazarusinthesanatorium]

Here's a lengthy diatribe on WHY The Patriots are the "Evil Empire" of the NFL, as the Author panders to the underdog theme, He includes, of course, US, The Pat's Fans as #1 Reason WHY We Are Eveeehl...and thus, by All means, Hated By Each, Every, and ALL... Maybe Someone else can make some sense of it:

http://gonnersportstalk.blogspot.com/2008/01/new-england-patriots-are-evil-empire-of.html

http://gonnersportstalk.blogspot.com/2008/01/new-england-patriots-are-evil-empire-of.html

 

[TrueBeliever]

My thoughts on each (in order of their rankings):

5) Having attended a Lions home game once, I can vouch for the fact that Lions fans are not exactly the cream of the crop (though they're still not near as ugly as Bears fans.) But to me this ranking is a double standard - why are you criticizing people for supporting their team and attending games in Detroit, but ridiculing New England fans who didn't attend games during that team's (very) lean years??? Usually fans who attend the games no matter what are praised for it. Besides, they probably can't afford to stop buying the tickets because with that fancy new stadium they're probably in hock paying for the PSLs.

4) Okay, brace yourself for a shock - EVERY team has fairweather fans. It's the nature of the beast. Yes, the stands were half-full for a lot of years - mainly because (from what I've heard) Billy Sullivan was so cheap when it came to running his team he made Mike Brown look like a reckless spender. So again the double standard of saying Detroit fans are wrong to support their team under bad management, while Boston/NE fans are wrong for not supporting theirs when it was under bad management. I also think the author could stand to recognize the fact that every game has been sold out ever since Kraft bought the team - two years before SB 31 and seven years before 36.

3) It's hard to disagree with this one. Frankly I was appalled at the people protesting outside the courthouse during Vick's court dates (though some of those were there because of his race, not because they were Falcons fans.) Just because it was "part of his culture" growing up doesn't make it right. I am by no means a member of PETA or anything but the things they were doing to those dogs was just wrong.

2) As for the Cardinals, I don't think their fans deserve that much blame. Did the people of Arizona lobby like hell to get a team for years? Not that I've heard. From what I understand, it was more a matter of political bickering. St. Louis wouldn't give the Bidwells a new stadium, while a bunch of bigshots in Phoenix said they would, in the hopes of becoming a major league city. So the Bidwells flipped off St. Louis and headed west (even though Wellington Mara told them it would make a lot more sense for an NFC East team to relocate to Baltimore, a city actually on the east coast), only to find that the promised new stadium was built on a house of cards underwritten by the savings-and-loan lobby. Meanwhile, St. Louis built a brand-spankin'-new domed stadium for the Rams less than a decade later.

Arizona, like Miami, is a "transplant" market. A big chunk of the fan base there moved there from somewhere else and already has ties to another team. So even if another NFL team falls into their lap, probably all they're thinking about is, "Oh good, I can see the Bears/Giants/Browns when they come to town." And with how cheap the Bidwell family is when it comes to personnel, it's hard to blame them. The Cardinals are an embarrassment. I remember during their big playoff run in 1998-99, some people I knew were surprised because they didn't even know the Cardinals were still in the NFL, you hardly ever hear about them if you're a casual fan.

The Cardinals were the only team I supported moving to Los Angeles, and now that's not going to happen because they finally got their new stadium.

1) Oh man, here we go.

First I have to explain - for years, my #1 most-hated NFL team was the Baltimore Ravens because of the move from Cleveland. Then I read two books that turned me around on the issue. The first was written by a former employee of Modell who explained that the move wasn't motivated so much by greed as it was incompetence; the second by a Baltimore sportswriter who explained how the NFL basically screwed the city's a**hole raw over the years, then snidely passed them over in the 1990s expansion (i.e. the one that led to the founding of the Panthers and the Jaguars.)

The NFL should never have put a team in Jacksonville, plain and simple, and now it is paying the price with a fan base that won't sell out games even with how well the team is playing. Whether it's economic factors or just plain apathy, the Jacksonville situation is really the worst of both worlds.

Again, I take issue with the writer's taking the fans to task for not going to games - maybe people in Arizona and Jacksonville just aren't as into football as everyone thought. Like me - I'm not a baseball fan, so an MLB club could put up a stadium across the street from me and I'm still not going to go to any games there.

Granted, if the team does move and then they ***** and raise hell, well then I guess it's their fault. But I have no sympathy for the NFL for putting that club there. THey could have put it in Baltimore or St. Louis, two cities that had teams and lost them due to greedy ownership, then got blown off by Paul Tagliabozo and his belief that "if we go back to previous markets, we're not really expanding, are we?" That philosophy is still biting the NFL in the ass today.

0) Finally, I'd like to put in my own nomination for these rankings - the fans in Minnesota. People I know who have lived there say Minnesota fans are the definition of fairweather - when the Vikes are in the playoffs, suddenly the car flags and the jerseys appear; otherwise most of the people there just don't seem to care. You don't see people with Vikings mini-helmets, etc. at their desk at work, and on and on.

Then again, perhaps Minnesota fans are among the best, because they're not giving in (nor are they letting their politicians give in) to the Vikes' demands for a new building. The argument, to me, sounds like a mother arguing with a young child - "You said you wanted an indoor stadium, so we built you an indoor stadium. Then once the paint was barely dry you started crying that you wanted a new one. Well tough, buster, you work with what you got!"

 

[Kontradiction]

Typical ignorant charger fan. It isn't that you have one city, it is your city has crappy fans.

San Diego is the eighth largest city in the US by population.

There are more people within 5 miles of your stadium than almost every other NFL stadium. Do the math.

You have more people within 30 miles of your stadium than most other stadiums, most of which sell out.

Green Bay has about a tenth the population of San Diego and it sells out every game and has a huge waiting list.

You have the numbers. You just don't have a decent fan base.

Do the math.

Which is why the San Diego Chargers will soon be the L.A. Chargers. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

 

[SamusAranX]

1)

The NFL should never have put a team in Jacksonville, plain and simple, and now it is paying the price with a fan base that won't sell out games even with how well the team is playing. Whether it's economic factors or just plain apathy, the Jacksonville situation is really the worst of both worlds.

Actually, the NFL made a wise decision to put football in Jacksonville. Jacksonville at the time was and still is a growing city. From 1990 to today approximately the population of the city only has grown by 150,000; this stands in stark contrast to many other cities in America that have been either declining in population or remaining stagnant. The generation of children who grew up with only one professional sports team in that city are now growing old enough to buy season tickets and single game tickets.

Last year we had a problem with blackouts. The games were still sold out, so that is a misconception on your part. The very purpose of blackouts is to get those last few tickets sold. The problem is not selling out the stadium; it is getting that done on time and without the blackout incentive.

Again, I take issue with the writer's taking the fans to task for not going to games - maybe people in Arizona and Jacksonville just aren't as into football as everyone thought. Like me - I'm not a baseball fan, so an MLB club could put up a stadium across the street from me and I'm still not going to go to any games there.

Actually, Jacksonville is very into professional football. The television ratings for Jacksonville Jaguar games have been consistently high and have beat out college game ratings.

Granted, if the team does move and then they ***** and raise hell, well then I guess it's their fault. But I have no sympathy for the NFL for putting that club there. THey could have put it in Baltimore or St. Louis, two cities that had teams and lost them due to greedy ownership, then got blown off by Paul Tagliabozo and his belief that "if we go back to previous markets, we're not really expanding, are we?" That philosophy is still biting the NFL in the ass today.

No, it isn't; again the tickets are getting sold and the NFL does indeed get its revenue. That is the purpose of blackouts. And your point on St. Louis and Baltimore is moot. Both cities got their own teams within a few years.

 

[lazarusinthesanatorium]

To ALL:

Everyone, You ALL have to see what I wrote (as ANONYMOUS) as for the Author's Reasons WHY He Hates the Pats (in the Comment Section):

http://gonnersportstalk.blogspot.com/2008/01/new-england-patriots-are-evil-empire-of.html

http://gonnersportstalk.blogspot.com/2008/01/new-england-patriots-are-evil-empire-of.html

 

[TrueBeliever]

Samus:

I respect your opinions, but I still disagree on some points.

First, as the article indicates, Florida already had two NFL teams before the Jags were added. Granted, Florida's a large state, but still. I've heard the argument that the NFL was trying to win over "transplant" fans, but I don't think that holds water because Jacksonville is in far northern Florida, whereas I believe most transplants are in southern Florida.

Also, the NFL is still suffering from not putting the expansion teams in Baltimore and St. Louis, and here's why - the league pools most of its revenue so that all the teams get an equal share. However, smaller-market teams contribute less to that pool so that the overall total is less than it would be with more teams in the bigger markets. A prime example was when Bud Adams took the Oilers out of Houston (the fifth- or sixth-largest media market at the time) and put them in Nashville, a much smaller market. You may argue that it all worked out because they put a new team in Houston, but I'm getting to that.

I'll admit that even if the AFC team had gone to Baltimore and not Jax, that doesn't mean the Browns wouldn't have left Cleveland. That was all but certain with the predicament Modell had gotten himself into. BUT with the way it turned out, there was such a backlash that the league felt it had no choice but to promise to restore the Browns in Cleveland within five years, which necessitated making the new Browns an expansion club, which in turn necessitated adding yet another expansion club to restore an even number of teams. As a result the league is in danger of becoming a diluted product because even with all the college football programs in the country, there just aren't that many NFL-caliber players to go around. (Though I'll admit that the new alignment of eight four-team divisions works rather well.)

Even worse, the league is considering expanding again, for the sole purpose of getting back into... Los Angeles. L.A. is a problem for the long-term health of the league. The NFL needs L.A. because it's the second biggest media market in the country, second only to New York. At the same time any team in L.A. is going to struggle because of the apathetic fan base.

Now, because the league didn't go back to St. Louis, that city was more than happy to build new digs for the Rams - a move that, like the Oilers move, was good for the individual team but bad for the league as a whole.

So I still feel that the league IS still being bitten in the ass because of the relocation/expansion snafu created by blowing off Baltimore and St. Louis. I have nothing against the Jaguars or their fans, but I do feel very strongly that it would have been much better for the league as a whole had that franchise gone somewhere else.

Finally, I would like to clarify that I wasn't saying I believed Jacksonville people aren't into football, I was just trying to explain why there seemed to be issues with attendance/blackouts. I was not aware that the games actually were selling out, just not by the blackout deadline. I also read last year in an article (can't remember the source, maybe it was CBS Sports) that the economy down there wasn't that good which was likely contributing to the drop in ticket sales. Granted, no one can predict that kind of stuff over a decade down the road.

One last thing - when you said Jax had one major league franchise, were you referring to the Bulls of the USFL?