Do you just lose interest in the sport? Do you just move on the #2 team on your depth chart (or whichever team is now shown in your home market)? Do you still root for the now absent team, even though it’s in a different time zone? What if the team also changed it’s name (such as the Tennessee Titans)? What happens when you get a replacement team?
I ask just out of curiousity. Living in New York, this doesn’t figure to be an issue for me in the near future.
Thanks.
Back before we had pro sports anywhere remotely close to home, I liked the Houston Oilers for some reason. Always thought Warren Moon was great QB. When they moved to Ternnessee I just moved with 'em. I still like them but now I like several teams. When the Panthers came to NC I had to root for them. But now I watch more games in hopes of seeing the teams that I hate loose. I never miss a Cowboys game. I keep that Jerry Jones will come down out of the box in the third quarter of a loosing game and get freight trained on a sideline play. That would be the ultimate NFL moment for me.
When the Hornets left NC I didn’t care much. Not many people did. Shin ruined the fan base. Don’t even remember where they went.
When the Cleveland Browns skipped town in 1995, and then the NFL successfully extorted a new stadium out of the populace in exchange for a replacement team and a virtual surrender in the lawsuit settlement, I swore off NFL football. In the 3 years that the Browns franchise was dormant I didn’t miss NFL football a bit and I’ve never got back into the habit of watching it religiously like I did before 1995. There’s plenty of other good football to watch at the college and high school level so to hell with the NFL, I say. I don’t buy NFL products and I don’t watch their games on TV. If a friend of mine has an extra ticket to the game or if I get invited to a Super Bowl party I’ll go just to be sociable and because I enjoy the company, but I don’t get too concerned over who wins or not. The only NFL team I enjoy now are the Oakland Raiderettes!
Thought I’d let you know what happens when you try to move a British football team to a new location…you take a half-decent team like Wimbledon, put them in a new town, and see all the old supporters form their own team themselves:http://www.afcwimbledon.co.uk/
OK, so they’re hardly going to win titles soon. But I’m glad they showed that buying a team isn’t all that simple.
The Raiders were my team in the 60s and 70s. When they moved to LA at the end of the 1981 seasin, I still was a fan. But after a few years it was like I was trying to hang on to a partner that dumped me for another. When that clicked in, I was never a Raider fan again.
Besides I had moved to San Francisco from Oakland about the time the Raiders left for LA. So for me to become a 49er fan was totally realistic. And since they were the team of the 80s, the switch was quite easy.
Even when the Raiders came back to Oakland in 1995, it was WAY TOO late. They wrecked the Coliseum, anf the 49ers had just won their fifth Super Bowl. And they also had the nerve to bring all that Darth Raider stuff with them from Holleywood. They’re a sad joke of a franchise.
Here in Houston, we celebrated.
When the Oilers packed up and boogied off to Tennessee and became the Titans, the general feeling in the city was “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”
You wait 12 or 13 LONG years til the Cleveland Frickin’ Browns move to your town… then root for them.
At least they won sooner than the Orioles…
I’ll let you know if I miss the Expos…
Nope, not yet.
Take away my hockey team, though, and I move with them. No way in hell am I rooting for the Leafs. Maybe the Sens if I get desperate…
As an Angeleno, I had an attachment to the Rams, but never to the Raiders. But I can’t say I miss either of them very much. I like baseball a lot more anyway.
There are still a lot of Raiders fans in the L.A. area. They are not a group you want to interact with much in my opinion. There are very few remaining Rams fans in Southern California.
“Bud, if you lose to the Raiders you’re outta the League!” - Al Bundy
No opinion on the thread, just wanted to get that in there.
When Bill Bidwell moved my beloved NFL Cardinals to Phoenix, he was so despised that I have never known anyone from St. Louis who continued to root for them. (His first order of business, BTW, was to immediately make the cheapest seat to a Phoenix Cardinals game the most expensive in the league. What a guy).
I went to college shortly thereafter in Dallas, but there was simply no way I was ever going to feel anything but hatred for the Cowboys, having spent too many years hating the teams in the Cards old division. Then the Cowboys won some Super Bowls while I was there, making me hate them even more.
So after moving to San Francisco in '92 it was an easy choice for me to embrace the 49ers, especially after they kicked the Cowboy’s asses in the '94 NFC Championship.
The Rams moved to St. Louis after I was long gone, but I refuse to get on board b/c I consider them an LA team, and as a San Francisco resident I’m contractually bound to dislike anything from Southern California. 
However, my brothers who still live in St. Louis are now Rams fans.
Clear as mud?
As others have noted…when the Rams left Southern California, I just stopped watching the NFL. The Raiders are thugs, and I don’t miss the NFL a bit. I don’t even watch the SuperBore. I’d rather watch college football, and baseball is my real passion.
I think SoCal has a NHL team, but I have no idea who they are. 
Go on a hunger strike…
Singing:
“Dancin’ away my hunger pains,
movin’ my feet so my stomach don’t hurt”
Root for the Green Bay Packers.
They have a long and fabled history, they don’t have the “hoodlum” image of a team like the Raiders, they’ve been in the same location for three-quarters of a century, and because they’re owned by the people of Green Bay, they aren’t going to be moving anytime in the near future.
That said, once the Rams moved to St. Louis, I started rooting for them.
You misspelled “New York Giants”.
All kidding aside, you can never go wrong following a storied franchise steeped in tradition. Packers, Giants, Steelers. Hmmm, let me add the caveat that the storied franchise must have a commitment to excellence, thus disqualifying teams like the Bears and Lions.
Heh, my first thought when I saw the thread title was “Procede as normal if you’re in LA.” Sometimes I wonder if they even noticed their teams have moved away.
The Browns are still dormant, aren’t they?
Oh, we noticed. We just weren’t going to give in to the NFL’s stadium extortion.
When the Rams left town, I just stopped caring about the NFL. I’ll watch games every once in a while, but I don’t have a favorite anymore. I just sort of pick by the players I like, the underdogs and who’s playing teams I don’t like.
I don’t know about that. Why not ask Joe Gibbs?
You can have 'em! And keep 'em!!
They’ve been nothing but a money pit for this State!
Their owner would be a great help to the James boys, if he could haul his butt onto a horse!
If the Tennessee Titans leave, GOOD RIDDANCE! :mad: :mad: :mad: