Is there a name for this type of "sports fan"?

Factual Questions
1

(Edit: I’m posting this in GQ instead of the Game Room because it’s more a psychology question than a sports question.)

Over the years, I have encountered a number of “sports fans” who don’t seem to be fans of any particular team. Rather, their preferred method of expression seems to be denigrating the “local” team and/or its players.

Examples (I live in Washington state, so I’ll use the Seattle Mariners and Seahawks):

That guy who, upon seeing another person reading a newspaper article or listening to a news report about the Mariners, feels that he needs to contemptuously point out how much the Mariners suck. And doing this between 1995 and 2001, when the Mariners most certainly did not suck.

The sports card shop owner who, upon being asked about Ken Griffey, Jr. cards, feels the need to explain why he thinks Junior ain’t “all that” and proceeds to extoll the virtues of Wade Boggs as the superior player. (Dude, I was just asking about baseball cards.) In this case, I was a “new” baseball fan (circa 1993-94), largely unfamiliar with players who weren’t Mariners, so I wasn’t interested in arguing from my ignorance. For all I knew, Boggs was a better player. But I wasn’t asking about Boggs, I was asking about Griffey. I’m attempting to spend money in this guy’s store, yet he feels compelled to explain to me why the player whose cards I’m attempting to buy isn’t worth my time. :confused:

The drunk woman in the bar where I was watching the Seahawks first Super Bowl appearance, who spent the entire time loudly and obnoxiously screaming about how the Seahawks suck, loudly laughing and ridiculing every time a penalty was called against the Seahawks, and generally doing everything she could to piss off the 100+ Seahawks fans in attendance. She wasn’t rooting for the Pittsburgh Steelers, she was rooting against the Seahawks. (She was eventually escorted from the premises, mostly for her own protection.)

Is there a name for that mentality?

Seriously, I don’t care if somebody likes a different team than I do, and I really don’t take issue if that fan wants to tell me why “their” team is better. That’s what a fan does. What I don’t understand is the person who just seems to hate the “local” team and its players for the sake of hating them.

2

Douchebag

3

Depends on the town. In Philadelphia it’s just a tradition.

4

There is no shortage of people who find happiness through others suffering (known as Schadenfreude). There is passive schadenfreude and active schadenfreude. The people described by the OP dabble in active schadenfreude.

They are mild sadists. They are self-loathing.

See also: Haters

Haters is the casual word you are looking for.
(Philadelphia native here. We call 'em haters)
.

5

It’s not unique to sports, but to most modern society as a whole. When something reaches a certain level of popularity some people start hating it solely because it’s popular, rather than any legitimate objection.
In tech, it’s known as the “koolaid point”.

6

Attention seeking behavior.

I once had a roommate who would always ignore my questions and answer with what he wanted to talk about. My response was, “So, you’re just going be an a-hole and ignore my question?”

7

IIRC, it is or was more or less the norm in the days before big marketing money got into football (soccer) in the UK. It was a mark of serious fandom that you went, week after week, and paid your money to stand in the rain and grumble about the overpaid centre forward, the overfed and butter-fingered goalkeeper, the clueless manager, and the numbskull chairman. When you weren’t chanting worse about the other team, that is.

8

Contrarian

This is popular with the people I am around therefore I hate it.

9

“Normal” (if it involves living in central Ohio and hoping the Ohio State Buckeyes lose their football games).

Though I avoid expressing myself around OSU fans. :slight_smile:

10

Jeff Albertson.

11

Nonesense. If it is indeed a tradition it doesn’t go back to the 1940s and 50s when I was growing up. You did have to choose whether you were an A’s fan or a Phillies’ fan. Before 1950, a large majority were A’s fans going back to three pennants ('29,'30,'31), but after the Phillies won the pennant in 1950 the majority shifted to them until the A’s finally decamped (to KC initially) around 1955.

12

This.