NFL: Dallas Cowboys
NBA: Dallas Mavericks, San Antonio Spurs
MLB: Texas Rangers (AL), Houston Astros (NL)
NHL: Dallas Stars
College Football: Baylor Bears
NFL: Detroit Lions
NHL: New Jersey Devils
NBA: Detroit Pistons
NCAA Football: Western Michigan Broncos (duh)
College Lacrosse (club): see user name
College Lacrosse (varsity): 'Cuse
Major League Lacrosse: Rochester Rattlers
Formula Extreme Superbike: Jason Pridmore
MLB: Philly, but I don’t watch much
NFL: The Detroit Lions:( I can’t help it. I live in Michigan. It’s either them or the Packers and I simply cannot take those cheese heads seriously.
NBA: Detroit Pistons or anybody playing against the Lakers
NHL: Red Wings by default, though anybody playing against Toronto gets my vote. After the Wings got knocked out in the first round, I watched a lot more non-wings games and was impressed by Ottowa and Minnesota. Vancouver also plays a good game.
MLB: you mean people actually watch that crap
Having lived in about seven different places in three different countries, I’ve picked up a lot of different “favorite teams.”
NFL–Pittsburgh Steelers and Buffalo Bills (but if they’re playing each other, it’s the Steelers)
MLB–Philadelphia Phillies
NHL–Toronto Maple Leafs (gotta be quiet about that around here in Western New York, though)
NBA–Anyone who plays the Lakers
NCAA–Penn State football, Niagara University b-ball and ice hockey
Scottish Premier League (soccer)–Aberdeen FC (celebrating its 100th anniversary this year!)
Cricket–Glamorgan in the county competitions, and every country in the Test and one-day arenas (so I’m never disappointed!)
My NCAA Men’s Basketball team is the University of Kentucky Wildcats, as I was raised in Lexington, where basketball occupies a status somewhere between legal system and official state religion. Of course, I went to college in California, by my school’s team was a perennial loser in Division III, so there wasn’t much danger of me switching.
You’d have to live here to understand, but let me try to describe it.
First of all, imagine the Boston Red Sox, a team that never, ever wins the big one, and hasn’t since days of yore, but imagine they were actually worse - bad and chokey, but never even good enough to make the World Series much less win it. Like the Cubs but with none of the lovable loser image.
Now, imagine the Red Sox had more fans than ANY other team, even the Yankees, but that they were easily the worst, most ignorant fans in the sport, the sort of fans who cheer for the team but do not actually follow the sport. If the Sox acquire Jose Lima, every fan announces that the World Series is as good as won. The Sox are the best team in the majors no matter what their record is. Imagine these fans quite literally could not remember most of the other teams in the Red Sox’s own division.
Now imagine that FOX, ABC, NBC, and CBS decided that only Red Sox games would be broadcast to the exclusion of all others, and any other team you wanted to watch on TV you could only watch if you were really lucky and they were playing a game on the West Coast that ended after the Sox were done. Imagine also that the national announcers on all those networks actually did the Red Sox home broadcasts and so were Red Sox fans themselves. And imagine that even the national ESPN feed always led off all Sportscenters with the Red Sox game, followed by Red Sox news, followed by Red Sox talk, and only then got into the other scores and other sports. And imagine you’re living in Boston and the local sports radio station broadcasted Boston Red Sox news to the exclusion of all other sports teams, to the point that if the Patriots weent 13-3 and were facing the Dolphins to the AFC championship, they’d still lead off every broadcast with Red Sox news, and would even cover the Red Sox with two thirds of all broadcasts when it wasn’t even baseball season. Imagine the radio station and local papers put more coverage into the Sox than they did into the Patriots, Bruins, and Celtics combined, even if those teams were winning and the Sox were not.
Imagine, on top of all of this, that the Red Sox were the dirtiest, most violent team in the majors.
Change “Red Sox” to “Maple Leafs” and change all the baseball references to hockey references, and change FOX/CBS/NBC/ABC to CBC and change ESPN to TSN. See what I mean? I’m not exagerrating one bit. It’s literally that bad.
I always though the Canadiens were the big boys on the Canadian hockey block in terms of popularity.
English Premiership: Arsenal
Italian football: Fiorentina
International football: if I’m watching with my girlfriend, then it’s Brazil, out of respect to her native country. Otherwise… Ireland.
And now for my native North American leagues:
MLB: Cincinnati Reds
NFL: Miami Dolphins
NHL: don’t follow anyone in particular. I’ll watch hockey whenever I come across it on TV, and I’ve enjoyed watching some minor league matches, but I don’t support any particular side.
MLS: same as for NHL. I haven’t formed an enthusiasm about any particular team, but will watch it when it’s on.
Don’t follow NBA, NASCAR, or any NCAA sports.
I always put my home team first. Do we root for teams or just the laundry they wear these days? They change so dang fast.
NFL: 49ers
MLB: San Francisco Giants
Japan Baseball - Yokohama Baystars
J-League Soccer - Jubilo Iwata
International Soccer - Japan, although if they’re not involved either France or the US.
Japan Ice Hockey - The Bunnies. Not that I’ve ever seen them play, I just get a kick out of grown men getting bashed into the boards by guys wearing uniforms that say “Bunnies” on them.
NHL - Boston Bruins
NBA - Boston Celtics
MLB - used to be the Boston Red Sox, but gave up on MLB after the '94 strike. I support individual players now, like Bonds, Macgwire, Ichiro and Matsui.
Sumo - Since Terao retired, I guess Kaio’s my favorite. Basically anyone as long as they’re not from Futagoyama-beya.
Well, I can’t speak for everybody- I’m too far out of town and the local sportscasters annoy me- but the Ravens are the “Old Browns” and Cleveland has an expansion team. It was the owner, the offices, coaches, trainers, and players that moved- the real team. Plus, the Ravens stayed in the division, and were moved with the Steelers in the realignment.
I’m really gonna try to get game tickets this year. I finally have a lead- my wife’s boss is a season ticket holder.
Oh yeah, I have one other team to support:
Olympics- USA teams
Jim “Catfish” Hunter, who played for the Kansas City/Oakland Athletics and the New York Yankees in the 60’s and 70’s. Excellent pitcher, won a Cy Young award and was inducted into the Hall of Fame.
My picks to click:
MLB (the best sport!): Detroit Tigers (my lovable losers), Atlanta Braves, my hometown Arizona Diamondbacks, and Oakland. Several others too. And kudos to any team that beats the Yankees.
NHL: Phoenix Coyotes, Detroit Red Wings, Colorado to some degree.
NCAA: Football? Peh. I’ll root for my Alma Mater, Arizona State, in baseball (who just got eliminated from the regionals 
)
Football and Basketball can suck my left nut. 
NFL: Buffalo Bills. The only real New York football team anyway. 
NBA: Chicago Bulls. Finally saw a game last year. A couple of years too late, but hey.
NHL: New York Rangers. Almost GLAD I couldn’t see them if I wanted to.
MLB: Atlanta Braves. John Smoltz is still my favorite pitcher, it really does my heart good to see he’s still thriving with them.
NCAA B-Ball: Duke.
TENNIS: Andre Agassi. [Okay, he’s not a team, I just thought I’d be completist. One of the best stories and best competitors in sports history.]
Yes, surely people have noticed these are all teams that were winning in the earlyish 90s. Well, that’s when I got into sports, and I guess it was easier to be aware of winning teams. I actually remember the first time I heard of most of them (Bills in losing their first Super Bowl, Braves in a pennant race against the Dodgers, Bulls playing the Sixers in the conference finals the first year they won it all, Duke playing Indiana in the Final Four when they won their first), and I just sort of picked them over their opponents for whatever reason. I’m sticking with those that aren’t winning, and if the others have some tough years, I’ll stick with them then, too. Just to head off any “front-runner” thoughts.
Premiership: Arsenal - dating back to 1978 when I attended my first match, standing in the North Bank.
College: Cal.
Not terribly interested in any other teams, but I’ll watch just about any sporting event…except for golf.
Thanks ace. I won’t even pretend to understand the stats but the fact that a guy was calling for his return twenty odd years after his retirement is recommendation enough.
NHL: Los Angeles Kings, Anaheim Mighty Ducks
NFL: San Diego Chargers
NBA: Los Angeles Lakers
MLB: Los Angeles Dodgers, Anaheim Angels
Golf: Tiger Woods
NCAA: USC Trojans, UCLA Bruins
If it ain’t So-Cal, then it’s So-So.
NFL: It changes almost weekly (as anyone who’s looked over my “bandwagon picks” can tell you), but if I had to pick one, it’d be the Cardinals. I can’t name another football team in the world that’s more overdue for a turnaround. And you can’t even point to a reason, unlike the Bengals (addlebrained, penny-penching ownership), Lions (no consistency whatsoever), or Seahawks (small market, difficult to keep talent).
NBA: Formerly the Trailblazers, since I was so desperate to see Scottie Pippen make a damn name for himself. Later the Spurs; they were a strong, underrated team with great chemistry. May change again due to David Robinson’s retirement.
MLB: Dunno. Rooted for the Rangers for a bit, but can barely follow the sport now.
NHL: Again, dunno. Too little cold weather in this state.
Golf: I’ve become a serious mark for Ernie Els and Mike Weir, the former because he’s a phenomenal golfer who’s NEVER gotten his due, the latter because he’s a Canadian (with all that implies), took some unwarranted grief from Alan Shipnuck, and really turned it up in recent months. I used to like Phil Mickelson, but he’s just too unreliable and streaky right now, and that “inferior equipment” incident was just embarrassing.
Tennis: No real stickouts right now…let’s say Carlos Moya, simply because he’s a fomer clayhead who came back from injury and added some dimension to his game.
NASCAR: Gotta be Jeff Gordon. No one in this league has taken more crap than him. The way he’s able to turn in one great race after another despite so much adversity is amazing.
Indeed. Too bad he’s pulled out of Wimbledon.
Moya doesn’t really have much of a chance on grass anyway
Nope. Never have been. It’s a linguistic thing; they’re gods in Quebec, but in English-speaking Canada the Leafs are #1.