Flummox is a great word. As is lummox. I would kill for a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich with some tomato soup right now.
Well if the St. Louis Rams won, I wouldn't have started following them. I placed my bet on the Pats and started following them. I watched every game available every season, they haven't won every single season. Even the Matt Cassel season. Yeah they went 11-5, but still. I have a 2 Patriots shirts and a Patriots watch and know all their players, watch their draft picks. So get off this front runner shit already. All of that AND I fell in love with Brady's eyes. I was enthralled.
Ok. So it says that you're in Chicago. Since you're also a Bulls fan, I presume you have some ties to Chicago, unless you front run the Bulls as well. Anyway, since you seem to have some ties to Chicago you have zero excuse for not being a Bears fan. And honestly, picking a team to follow based on who wins the Superbowl? You can't be any more of a front running bandwagoneer than that.
I've really never understood the scorn for non-geographic sports team preferences. As if geography isn't almost as arbitrary.
Consider how much shit I would get if I was a hardcore Gophers (football), Vikings, and Timberwolves fan... some shitty teams right here. As much as I hate to admit it, the Twins even belong on that list after last season.
But dude, he even cheered for them that year they went 11-5. If that's not commitment I don't know what it is. Parker, people like you should be forced to watch old tape of when the patriots sucked, like in clockwork orange. Then whenever you try to cheer for them you'll sick. I can't think of a more appropriate fate for a bandwagoner who refuses to admit he's a bandwagoner.
Unless you're putting all of the teams' names in a hat and drawing one out randomly pretty much all non-local team preferences are based on who's winning, so by definition it's frontrunning. It's somewhat understandable if you don't have a local team because in that case what's going to be shown on TV are the winning teams, but if there's a local team why wouldn't you back it? After all if you go to a game it's going to be for a local team.
It's rare, but by no means unheard of. Off the top of my head, the Thunder had a huge (and high profile, w/ Bill Simmons) non-geographic fan base in the early Durant years when they were sucking balls. The Suns had a big fan base when they were good (but not dominant) because they played a really fun style for casual fans (and serious fans too). Same with the Lions right now recently: they're pretty good now, but not "front running," and people have been getting progressively more excited about them as the Stafford-Megatron era has gone on. For a personal example, I've been a Michigan football fan for over a decade because I loved Charles Woodson. Including during the Rich Rodriguez years, which weren't the least bit fun. My dad has cheered for the Red Wings since the 1950s despite being Canadian, because Gordie Howe is his favorite player to ever put on skates. It's one thing if someone switches teams constantly, or doesn't seem to actually known much about the sport/team and is obnoxious about their fandom. But I don't see what's so bizarre about latching on to a playing style or individual player, especially for someone who didn't grow up following the sport in question (like Parker).
I've always wondered about people who start following a team because of a single player. I mean if watching that player is what got you attached to the sport in the first place how did you find out about the player to begin with? Did you have friends who were Michigan fans and you just happened to watch a game and decided you wanted to watch Woodson play?
I still try to follow all the MN teams. I hate basketball though so I only watched the Wolves when they made it into the playoffs. I can say the only other professional team I have rooted for as an adult is the Colts because Peyton Manning is my favorite football player.
A couple of factors, I suppose. I was very young at the time (about 8) and thus impressionable. Neither of my parents were from football schools. The only nearby team was BC (which I had no real connection to and didn't catch on TV much). And I just happened to start watching college football for the first time during Woodson's Heisman year, and was entranced by the whole three-way player thing. I think a lot of single-player fans are going to be people 1) latched onto a player when very young, or 2) who came into the sport late and just happened to catch a few astounding games from a guy, or who have a related college allegiance. For some reason you see this a lot with the NBA (Kobe, LeBron, and Durant have sizable camps who latched onto them, and it isn't as loud but I imagine the Derrick Rose camp is considerable). My guess is because the NBA is prone to freakish and obvious displays of individual athleticism.
I'm from New York originally(although I haven't lived there in almost a decade), and my teams are the Bulls, Cowboys and Yankees. The Bulls because I loved watching them when I was a kid(Jordan years), the Yankees because I was raised to be a Yankees fan, and I don't really have an explanation for the Cowboys*. I don't consider myself a bandwagon fan at all for the following reasons: My beloved Cowboys have one exactly ONE playoff game in the last 16 years. It has never occurred to me to root for anyone else during that time My beloved Bulls are great now, but they had that 12 year drought where they could barely crack .500 once or twice in that span(I still shudder when I think of the Gordon days). It has never occurred to me to root for anyone else during that time. Sure the Yankees win a lot, but by this logic its ok for me to root for them because I went to dozens of their games as a kid and I'm from New York. I'm not saying bandwagon fans don't exist, but just because someone isn't local and roots for a certain team doesn't necessarily mean that they're bandwagoning(incidentally, my brothers teams are the Chargers, Rockets, and Yankees). *When I was a kid my dad got me one of those Giants children's helmets. I covered it in duck tape and carved a star in it. He was completely fucking mystified.
I mostly root geographically. I always root for Texas teams, or the team that is closest to us. An exception is to root for the team that beat mine. Then I can say my team lost to the champions. I also root for people I like. I like seeing good people win.
I think the resentment comes from how part of being a sports fan is about suffering. Everyone wants to see their team win a championship, but that rarely happens, and they have to endure years of failure first. When someone picks a team that isn't local, they usually pick the one that's playing best right now, or close to it. So it seems unfair that they get to enjoy the bliss of victory without having to endure the disappointment. People will cheer for a team like the lions or broncos, but they don't tend to switch away from their favorite team. It's more of a side show.