The Yomiuri Giants are very much the Japanese pro baseball equivalent of the New York Yankees - the most popular team, also most polarizing and disliked team, and has won the most titles.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are the Canadian hockey version of the Dallas Cowboys - a team that has very little recent success to show and is mired in decades of mediocrity, yet still draws huge revenue, has a big fanbase, and never a lack of attendance.
Is there some team that is like the foreign equivalent of the Eagles, Browns, Lions, etc.? Is Manchester United the Lakers of the Premier League? Etc.
I only know a little about Japanese baseball, but if that description is correct, I’d say that makes them the Los Angeles Dodgers of their league, not the New York Yankees, now that the Dodgers have taken that spot away from the Yankees with their insane levels of spending and recent success.
Birmingham City FC suffered under a 100 year Romani curse that ran almost concurrent with the championship drought suffered by the (allegedly cursed) Chicago Cubs. Both from “second-cities”, too.
The only US sport I really follow is the NFL so I am not sure about the Lakers but I think of them as the Cowboys of the Premier league, average attendance is over 10,000 more than any other team dispite not winning the league since 2013. They have the huge fan base though failing to qualify for the (very financially lucrative) has resulted in neighbours City topping the revenue table. (The NFL equivalent would be the Post Season having seperate sponsorship and TV deals wirth the revenues only going to the teams that take part).
I’ve been to a Yomiuri Giants game and the fans are way too polite to be confused with Bleacher Creatures. Giants fans do, however, throw the ball back onto the field when it is hit into the stands by the opposing team.
In fact, one piece of baseball culture specific to the Giants is that their bleacher etiquette is strict and enforced by public disapprobation and possible ejection. There is no rowdiness and (compared to other NPB franchises) much less fun in the stands. It’s quite regimented and cheering in an unapproved way (or for the opponents too loudly or boisterously) will get you in trouble.
There seem to be some words missing there, but I assume you’re talking about Manchester United?
Man U owned the Premiership in the 1990s and 2000s, winning 12 titles between 1992 and 2012. Since the legendary Alex Ferguson retired, however, they’ve been in a long-term slump, currently featuring boardroom rows, money problems and fan revolts off the pitch and mid-table mediocrity on it. So maybe that makes them the Patriots?
The Premiership title of “rich club that bought their success” moved on from Man U to Chelsea to City and is currently in abeyance.
It’s hard to match Premier League clubs to US sports because the circumstances are so different - in the Premiership you can buy success in a way the US leagues are set up to prevent, on the other hand apart from a few long-term big clubs the cast rotates rapidly enough that it’s hard for a club to build a long-term reputation outside its own fanbase.
Who would be the US equivalents of Arsenal (very much a big club despite their last Premier League win being in 2003) and Spurs (who are generally regarded as part of the “Big Six” despite not winning the League since the 1960s)?
Southampton, currently sitting on what in the US would be a 2-22-3 record and still with an outside chance of being the worst team in Premier League history, are presumably there to make the White Sox feel better; the difference being that Southampton won’t be back next season.
The Dallas Cowboys. Still one of the NFL’s biggest fan bases, and are always ranked as the league’s most “valuable” team (i.e., financial value).
They haven’t won the Super Bowl in 29 years, and haven’t even made it out of the “divisional round” (I.e., the playoff “quarterfinals”) since that last championship.
Which I guess would make Spurs the Detroit Lions? It’s hard to make comparisons, because in American sports every team has a down period occasionally, but the biggest Premier League clubs almost always finish well over .500.
I’ve seen studies indicating that fully one-fourth of NBA fans root for the Lakers, leaving the other 29 teams to fight over the rest. I don’t think there’s any Premier League equivalent. Maybe Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga, but they dominate both in popularity and success; they don’t have a Celtics analogue with a comparable pile of silverware. Real Madrid and Barcelona loom over La Liga history like the Lakers and Celtics, but AFIAK their fanbases are roughly equal in size.
The SCOTTISH Premier league has an equivalent of the Lakers in ters on popularity, actually it is a far bigger dominence.
I couldn’t find a study but I did see a report on instagram followers: Celtic followers account for 45% of the SPL total, with Rangers not far bhind with 35%. The other 10 clubs have just 20% between them (based on 11 and 12 having no more followers than number 10).
But in the NBA nobody else comes close. IIRC the Nulls, Knicks, Heat and Celtics are the next tier with 10-15% each. (That first one was a typo but SO fitting ) Most teams have only 1-2% support.
Maybe the Dodgers are Manchester City. Longtime underachievers, always overshadowed in their own city…until they sold their souls by (moving to Los Angeles) (becoming a PR front for an oppressive dictatorship) and started winning, both in general and in their big crosstown rivalry. Also: both blue, though different shades.
I had hoped to see the Giants play the Swallows (stupid typhoon put an end to that) in Meiji Jingu. I was rather bemused to see that I would have to pick a side of the stadium for a fandom when I was buying a ticket well before my trip. There are unfortunate stories that come out from time to time in American sports, but I think it’s a real positive that we don’t segregate fans by team and the worst you’ll generally get as a visiting fan is some good-natured trash talk.
But I agree, my understanding of the mapping of Tokyo baseball is that the Giants are the Yankees and that the Swallows are the Mets.
In the Tokyo Dome the fan sections are in the outfield (each side takes turns cheering without interrupting each other.). The rest of the stadium is mixed.
For Australian Rules - the team is Collingwood. Hugely successful in the early part of the 20th century (lots of legends about being bankrolled by local gangsters etc), From a working class part of town - all the stories about little old ladies hitting opposition players with their umbrellas as they ran onto the field. Most manic, abusive, violent fans (not that we have had any really serious violence associated with the game).
Still the most popular club - supporters in all areas of life including celebrities, millionaires, politicians etc. The joke was if the local paper was having a circulation issue, they would put a Collingwood player on the front page with a story about ‘Hamstring!’, ‘Contract dispute’, or ‘Girlfriend!’ and circulation would double that day.
Every non-Collingwood fan supports 2 teams - their own, and whoever is playing Collingwood.
) Most teams have only 1-2% support.