So sports fans, what (if anything) would make you abandon your team? I was sitting in Citifield on the hottest day of the year and I was thinking about it. I am a Yankee fan who also follows the Mets. I love going to games. Probably my favorite summer activity. I think they did a great job on both the new Yankee Stadium and Citi Field. But cost, distance and travel headaches keep me from going to too many games. I think the one and only thing that would cause me to change loyalties was if by some miracle they decided to put a major league team in New Jersey. It would allow me to get some sort of season ticket package. Other than that I can’t see it.
If my Saints were to sign Michael Vick, my forty-plus years of fandom would end immediately.
If they left town.
I can see that. I was nominally a Nets fan. Heading to Brooklyn ended that. But in reality I lost interest in the NBA long ago so its not a hard decision.
I’ve followed Matt Kenseth since 1998. That ends at the end of this year when he switches to Joe Gibbs Racing.
I’ve been a Broncos fan since before the Orange Crush. I’ve seen them hire stupid coaches, trade fave players, win 2 SBs, be mediocre to sucky, blow great chances, and even Tebow. Still a fan.
Maybe if the entire organization were proven to be shape shifting aliens …
Nah, I’d still cheer the Thing in the blue and orange.
For a few years I’ve been contemplating the possibility that the Bills will move to Toronto or somewhere else once Ralph Wilson dies. That’d be it for me with the team. I’m not sure I would stop watching football, but it would suck a lot of the fun out of it.
Same here.
I left town, and the Habs are still my team for life. I’ll bitch about bad years and bad decisions and I’ll be sad to see good players leave, but as long as there’s a Montreal Canadiens team to cheer for, they will have my loyalty.
Or, I guess maybe if the team started murdering kittens, I’d have to stop loving them.
I’m mainly a Red Wings fan, but that’s been easy for a while now. I’ve been a Lions fan since Barry Sanders. Even through the 0-16 season. I watched my football team lose every single game they played for an entire season.
So yeah. I guess leaving town would be the only thing they could do, but I’m one of those die hard fans. You support your team no matter what. Changing teams is a character flaw. 
Good timing award-because I am about to give up on the Red Sox. This organization has bumbled and fumbled things so badly over the last few years-in just about every area imaginable, from their collapse last year to trading away good young talent for worthless crap and signing veterans who almost invariably fall apart upon arrival, along with a training staff who doesn’t appear to have a single clue as to how to keep the roster healthy…well frankly I’ve about had it. It’s the casual giving away of young players which really dampens my enthusiasm, because I so enjoy seeing them develop in a Sox uniform.
My father was a die hard Brooklyn Dodger fan. To say they broke his heart is an understatement. He was someone who breathed baseball since the day he was born and it was ripped away. He didnt start to get interested in baseball again until the 1980s Mets.
I was born in Washington DC, and was a Washington Senators fan. We moved to Philadelphia about the same time the Senators left DC. I no longer had my team, so I became a Phillies fan. Over 40 years later I still cheer for those lameasses. I’m still a Redskins fan. I stick with my teams no matter how bad they suck.
If the Steelers left town the entire city of Pittsburgh and all of its expats would never watch the NFL again. It was “threatened” in the mid-90s, but it would never have happened. It’s safe to say that the Steelers will never move.
The Pirates, on the other hand… You can only have faith for so long. My faith in baseball ran out in 1994, but the 2011-12 Pirates are dragging people like me back. Another 20-year run of futility? Hit the road.
I think it’s pretty settled at this point the Bills are remaining in Buffalo.
I dunnpo if this qualifies.
Suppose in 2017 the Red Sox field a skilled young team that makes the World Series; are you going to cheer for them? I’d think so.
Withdrawing a measure of your enthusiasm is not the same as abandoning the team. Fans going to one game a year instead of five, or not watching on TV as religiously as they used to, because the team stinks is understandable - hell, it’s one of the things that motivates a team to win. But you haven’t abandoned the team.
I mean, I love the Blue Jays but I’m not going to bust my ass and my wallet THAT often to go see a .500 team. Win something and I’ll go more often. If they start going 62-100 a few years in a row I’ll find a lot of other things to watch on TV, too. That’s just normal. But I wouldn’t actually stop being a fan or switch allegiance to another team.
See Cubs, Chicago.
I bleed black and gold. Even if the Steelers or the Penguins were to move, they’d still be my team. (And there was a chance of that with the Pens) Win or lose, I love my boys. I don’t believe in being a fairweather fan.
Dammit, I can’t wait for hockey season to start, dammit!
I followed RBNY since the beginning of MLS. They played walking distance from my house, and I supported the heck out of them.
Then they signed Thierry Henry, who screwed the Republic out of the World Cup.
Off went every bit of RBNY gear to Goodwill. I even stopped DRINKING Red Bull.
And…
Go Galaxy!
I’ll still wear the gear but: A team that looks the other way while a coach DESTROYS the lives of little boys.
I’ve been a Packer fan since I was a little kid. I’m a Packer season ticket holder, and a shareholder. It’s highly unlikely that the Packers would ever move, and I’ve followed them through some really lean times, but the only time I’ve ever really been disenchanted with them was in the mid-to-late 80s, when Forrest Gregg was coach. Gregg wanted “tough” players, but what he signed was a bunch of goons and criminals.
Between the players who were arrested for various sexual assaults (including Mossy Cade, who was convicted of raping his own aunt), and the guys who were just very dirty players (see Charles Martin tossing Jim McMahon on his throwing shoulder, after the play), I was really embarrassed to be a Packer fan in those days.