I’ve only really been following sports (hockey and CFL) for a couple of years now, and it’s been Habs and Alouettes the whole time. I lived in the GTA for a few years, and while I have a soft spot for the Ti-Cats, I never really became a huge fan, and I couldn’t even pretend to like the Laffs while I lived out there. I can’t imagine switching loyalties away from either of my two teams!
Are you referring to changing from one favorite team to another favorite team, or just any change in preferences? I’ve always rooted for Cleveland’s professional teams first and foremost (I’m from there), but college sports weren’t really on my radar at all until I went off to college, at which point I naturally started rooting for my school, and also started rooting for the local pro teams there as long as they weren’t playing my hometown teams.
I’ve added some teams over the years as I moved around, like the Bruins (I was in college during Bobby Orr’s years and Cleveland had no NHL team), Cubs (I moved to Chicago for 7 years in the 70s-80s and couldn’t root for the White Sox as Indian competitors).
I root for the current Browns and not Ravens (former Browns) but I don’t think of that as a change. In fact I root against the Ravens for abandoning Cleveland.
The only team I really changed loyalties for at all is Ohio State. I simply could not root for Woody Hayes’ teams as the man was odious. Now I’ll root for Ohio State if I happen to be watching them play but I don’t really follow them.
When it comes to professional basketball, I have always followed the fortunes of multiple teams - the Sixers with Doc and Mo’ and Fo’ Fo’ Fo’; the awful Nets with Mike Newlin playing at the RAC; the Knicks with Bernard King and local product Rory Sparrow; Portland with Kersey and Drexler and Duckworth and Sabonis; the Kings with Carrill and C-Webb; been digging the Magic the last few years. The team that I would always root for above any other is probably the Nets, though.
I did completely stop rooting for the Knicks (while living in Manhattan at the time) after Charlie Ward flipped PJ Brown - it was the final straw of putting up with their thuggish play during the reign of Jordan (and the Dream).
I was born and raised in the Southern California area. I’ve always rooted for teams in the LA (and Orange) County area. However, I tend to support the LA-based teams when they play head-to-head.
Since I can remember, I’ve been a fan for the Dodgers, Angels, Lakers, Clippers (since they moved to LA), Kings and Ducks.
I stopped being a Raiders and Rams fan when they left the city. I hardly watched NFL games since then, except for Super Bowl games.
I still cheer for “local” college teams such as UCLA, USC, Pepperdine, CS Long Beach, CS Fullerton, etc. EXCEPT when their victories affect my alma mater’s team, Cal Berkeley. 
I’ve been living in Japan for 15 years now and I still follow most of the teams above on a daily basis. Thank goodness for the Internet.
PS: I loathe all teams in the same division/conference as my favorite teams, especially those from San Diego, San Francisco/Oakland and Seattle.
I was born outside Dallas and have been a fan of the Cowboys, Rangers, and Stars all my life, and FC Dallas since I started caring about soccer and they started existing.
I had a mild preference for the Mavs but small. I went off to college at OSU, so root for those Cowboys/Girls in everything, but the move has turned me into a fan of the OKC Thunder.
Picked #8
As a kid, I followed the Dodgers until they finally beat those evil Yankees in '81. Since then, I’ve kinda drifted away from baseball, but I did root for the Angels mainly because they were the underdogs. That changed in 2002, naturally…and now that both L.A. teams are consistent title-winners, I don’t know who the hell to follow.
Same with ice hockey – flipped from the Gretsky-era Kings to the nascent Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, until the Ducks started winning. Never liked basketball, and as for football…well, there’s a reason L.A. doesn’t have a team. Nobody cares. 
I have moved, but I just can’t switch alliances. Need I mention the team?
I tried it for awhile, but I just like girls too much to completely switch teams.
What?
Chicago teams from birth and Illinois since college. The only way I can see myself adding teams is if I moved to Europe (no conflict between them and my Fire) or if I head back to college in a different division, although not if they played Illinois.
I can’t stop loving the Montreal Canadiens even though I don’t get to watch many of their games anymore.
I am trying to feel some love for the Capitals because they’re here and they’re actually good, but it feels like cheating when I watch a game.
Red sox fan born and raised. Pats too. I’ve moved all over the country and am still a fan of those two teams. I get a lot of guff here in upstate New York for wearing my Sox hat.
Been an SF Giants my whole life, and I don’t see that changing. Though, if the Giants had left in 1992… who knows? I’d probably become somewhat of an A’s fan, but I’d like to think I’d have more sense, even then, to be an American League fan. But there aren’t really any NL teams near by (though I imagine someone would have come along to replace the Giants in San Francisco). Glad I won’t have to face this in my lifetime again.
I came to the US to live ten years ago, and picked up most of my sporting loyalties in Baltimore, where i lived for the first 8 years. I still consider myself an Orioles fan and a Ravens fan, despite having moved to San Diego. I have developed something of a hometown affection for both the Padres and the Chargers, but the Baltimore teams are still my teams.
In baseball, however, my fandom is actually more for the game than for any particular team. While i follow the Orioles, and watch them online, i’ll watch baseball no matter who is playing, and i appreciate the game even when i don’t care much for the teams on the field.
My longest-running sporting commitment is actually to Liverpool FC in the English Premier League. When i was a kid growing up in Australia, an Australian soccer player named Craig Johnson made it with Liverpool. Johnson was a big name back home, as he was (i think) the only Aussie playing in big-time English soccer at the time. It was only natural for kids my age to become Liverpool fans, even if we rarely got to see any games, even on TV.
In hockey, i became a Vancouver Canucks fan when i lived there in 1992-94, despite the fact that my Canadian family are mostly Montreal supporters. I was in Vancouver when the Canucks made it to the Stanley Cup finals against the Rangers in '94. I don’t follow hockey too much now, mainly because i can’t watch it on TV.
But really, it’s not the the Sens are worth cheering for, even if they are closer to you (assuming I correctly remember where you live now!) You just have to become a Habs fan! Leave those Laffs behind!
It is. Bad Antigen, bad! No love for the Caps!
I’m a Raiders fan. I was born and raised in LA and went to games with my Dad growing up. When they went back to Oakland I stuck by them. Cheered for them as they started to become great again and went to the Superbowl. Was kicked in the ribs by them repeatedly for the last 7 years, and am now not sure what to think since they might actually look good this season, I’ll know more about how I feel on Sunday.
I have tried to change loyalties, being a Raiders fan isn’t easy, but nothing else sticks. There are other teams I like, but no one else gets me passionate about football.
I also grew up a Lakers fan, and that one has been remarkably easy to maintain, but my love of Basketball has diminished over the last 10 years or so. Still, the Lakers are my team.
Here Here!
{Vikings fan 
}
I like that analogy. It sort of fits for me too except that I was not raised a sports fan at all - but as a kid growing up in the 1970s, and with roots in the South Bronx, I was a “by default” Yankees fan until I was 26 or so, despite growing up in Flushing, Queens (where I moved when I was about 6 years old). I played a fair amount of pick-up baseball and had a book on HOF baseball players, rich with Yankees of course. I knew more about the Dodgers and Giants than I did about the Mets. In fact, I can still remember being surprised that a blue-with-orange-NY baseball cap hat I was given as a present by someone wasn’t some variety of Yankees hat but a “Mets” one. I literally did not even know there was another baseball team in New York. (This was about 1978 or 1979.)
In any case I didn’t get to watch any sports on TV, or go to any baseball games, as my parents were not fans, so my only exposure was from other kids or from the 5 minutes of sports coverage on the network news. By the time the “Gooden and Strawberry” Mets came around I was completely uninterested in pro sports of any kind - this despite the fact that my commute to high school was on the #7 subway train that went right past Shea Stadium every day (from 1983 to 1988). My only real memory of the 1986 World Series was seeing a clip on the nightly news of the guy getting arrested for parachuting down into Shea Stadium and thinking, “only in New York”; the incredible drama of the 9th inning rally of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series completely failed to register.
Then, four things happened:
1 - In my last year of college, my roommate from Chicago was so insufferable about the Bulls playing the Knicks in the 1992 NBA playoffs that I developed a rooting interest for the first time.
2 - My best friend in college (also a friend in HS) was a Knicks fan also, and we went to many games together from 1992-1996. He was (and is) a huge Yankees fan and hooked me into watching the 1995 and 1996 playoffs, where I saw him crushed when the Mariners come back to win over the Yanks, and then as deliriously happy as I think I will ever see him when the Yankees won in 1996. I was moved. I also saw the game played on TV, recalled playing baseball as a boy and thought to myself, I could love this again, this time as a fan.
3 - So, I tried to do so. I was acutely aware of my bandwagonnature and so endeavored to follow the Yanks starting with Spring Training of 1997. And immediately, I was turned off by what I felt was a homeristic tenor of coverage of the team on TV and on radio (exemplified by John Sterling), bordering on or crossing fully into pomposity. And this was from someone actively trying to be a Yankees fan. Still, what was I gonna do?
4 - That year, 1997, that same friend decided to run an all-newbie Rotisserie baseball league. He recruited only 4 other people (including myself) to give it a try, so to keep the draft pool reasonable, he decided to restrict it to a single division instead of for an entire league. Further, to avoid rooting conflicts between his Roto players and his real life fandom while allowing for maximum convenience in following the games and scores of “our” players, he chose… The National League East.
Soon I was listening to Gary Cohen, Howie Rose and Bob Murphy calling Mets games on the radio, watching a crew of completely no-name Mets turn in a surprising season to win 88 games, and not coincidentally, my Mets-heavy Roto team featuring John Olerud, Edgardo Alfonzo, Rick Reed and Bobby Jones cruise to a runaway victory. I felt like I was coming home to a place I had never been before. It was strange, but it felt right.
So, it’s his fault I’m now an actively rabid (and season ticket holding) Mets fan, instead of a fairly typical and casual “root for them in the playoffs” Yankees fan. I remind him of this all the time.
The Browns’ move in 1995 cured me. I figured if they didn’t need me, then I didn’t need them. And I was correct.
Living here in Cleveland, you really can’t avoid the Browns though. Their game results are on the front page of the paper and the lead story on TV all the time.
I never switched to another NFL team, but I did start following college football more closely and disregarding most of the NFL.
Football: I’ve been a Redskins fan since I was aware of the game. Had some secondary rooting interests along the way, but I remember when they sucked before Lombardi came to town, let alone George Allen or Joe Gibbs. They’re my team, even if the organization can’t seem to find its ass with both hands.
Baseball: as a kid, I rooted for the Nats, which meant Washington Senators v. 2.0. I can still tell you which players we gave up in that Godawful trade for Denny McLain after the 1970 season. They sucked after that, and I had no reason to keep following them after they moved to Texas a year later. My interest in baseball just kind of trailed off for a few years.
Then around 1977, Boswell’s coverage of the Orioles began getting me hooked on the O’s. Since at this time it was only about 7 years since Boz and I had been camp counselors at the same summer camp, the combination of his lyrical writing and the personal connection eventually got me hooked.
But part of what got me hooked on the O’s was that they were a smart team, both on the field and in the front office. That wouldn’t always be the case, but it was clearly something they were always shooting for…until Angelos fired Davey Johnson after the 1997 season. After that, it became very hard to be an O’s fan. And between that and (as I see it; YMMV) the greatly reduced level of regular-season drama as a result of letting a wild-card team into the playoffs, my baseball fandom pretty much tailed off as well.
Then along came the Nats. That initial half-season was quite the ride, but they haven’t been nearly as much fun since. One of these days they might get me interested again. Meanwhile, I’ve got a 3 year old, I’m generally out playing with him on weekend afternoons or summer weekday evenings, rather than watching or listening to a ballgame.