Image via Complex Original
Is there anything worse than a bandwagon sports fan? You know what we mean. Who hasn't met that guy who tries to justify being a fan of Alabama, the Miami Heat, the San Francisco Giants, and the Baltimore Ravens all at the same time? Please, dude, just stop. Being a true sports fan means sticking to one team, through thick and thin, in times of victory and in times of heartbreak. Once you start cheering for a different side, it's a slippery slope. Suddenly, you latch on to one championship team, and then another, and before you know it, you're supposedly a fan of half the franchises in the league. These are the 15 Signs That You're a Bandwagon Sports Fan. If these describe any of your tendencies in fandom, then it's time to take a hard look at yourself in the mirror. Ask yourself: If you weren't a fan of the Boston Red Sox before 2004, then can you really consider yourself a member of SoxNation? (Hint: No.)
You've never experienced a losing season in your life.
One of the worst things about a bandwagon sports fan is that they'll never let themselves go through the heartbreak that comes with seeing their team fall just short. Instead, they just switch sides at the last minute or claim that they were never a fan of the losing team in the first place. Suck it up, and take the loss like a man. All the losing is ultimately what makes the future victories so great.
You have more than one favorite team in a single sport.
No one has any right to be claiming both the Baltimore Ravens and the Washington Redskins for themselves. And don't try and tell us that you like to root for an NL team and an AL team or something like that. You're just hedging your bets, man. Choose one team for one sport. Oh, and to the friends of bandwagoners like this: when the bandwagoner's two teams get matched up against one another, it is absolutely up to you guys to call them out on their bullshit. They need to learn their lesson.
There is photographic evidence of you wearing a different team's fan apparel every year.
There are plenty of reasons that you should avoid earning comparisons to Justin Bieber, and this is definitely one of them. Don't be that guy who walks around wearing a Steelers jersey after they win the Super Bowl, and is then seen donning a Ravens championship T-shirt years later. You're embarrassing yourself.
You know less than half of the players on the team.
A true team isn't defined by one player; that's something that every real fan knows. So if you aren't able to at least name the starting five for your NBA team of choice, then you haven't been paying enough attention to them to call yourself a true supporter. Kobe isn't the only guy out there on the court, even if his stat sheet says otherwise.
You switched teams because you moved to a different city.
You were a Royals fan but switched over to the Red Sox after you moved to Boston? FOH. Arguments like that are just flimsy excuses to get out of a bad relationship. You stick with your team for life. Yes, it's tough to root for the Pittsburgh Pirates when you may have literally never seen them have a winning season, but stay strong. Your day will come.
You like to root for "the underdog."
March Madness is the prime time for these types of fans to crawl out of the woodwork. Granted, it's excusable for people to pull for Cinderella stories like George Mason or Florida Gulf Coast. But don't try and say that you always believed in them just because you pencilled them in on your bracket at the beginning of the tournament. We all know that you chose them by flipping a coin.
You switched allegiances because your favorite player joined a new team.
Fans like these always use the offseason to switch teams, hoping no one will notice them slip through in the shuffle. They're the same people who traded in their Orlando Magic Dwight Howard jerseys for his Lakers one...and now have to do the same after his move to Houston. Awkward. Of course, that's assuming that Dwight Howard still has any fans left.
When they're winning you refer to your team as "we," but when they're losing, it's "them."
Even as a die-hard fan, "we" is always a difficult term to throw out when you're referring to your favorite team. At the end of the day, our emotional involvment isn't equal to the players' actual physical commitment, so we don't really have the right to be calling it "our" Super Bowl victory when they were the ones laying it all out on the line. But bandwagoners are the worst. For them, their allegiance boils down to two simple phrases: "We won!" and "They fucking lost."
You don't have a legitimate reason for liking a certain team.
Excuses that you're not allowed to use as a reason to root for a team:
A) You just think their jerseys are cool.
B) The team that you would normally be a fan of wasn't good when you started getting into sports.
C) You cheer for them because your significant other does. Remember: you can pick your girlfriends, and you can pick your teams, but you can't let your girlfriends pick your teams.
You let your fantasy team decide who you're rooting for.
Alright, so here's the scenario: Maurice Jones-Drew is on your fantasy team, and the Jags are at the one-yard line. If he punches it into the endzone for them, you win your fantasy match-up for the week. However, it also means that the team he's playing against, your so-called favorite, the Houston Texans, will lose. Who are going for here? Answer: this shouldn't be a dilemma for you. You always take the real team over the fantasy one.
You don't really root for anyone until the playoffs.
Bandwagon sports fans are total scavengers. After the regular season has finished, and the contenders have been separated from the pretenders, a bandwagon sports fan will sift through the remains and pick out their new team, hoping to ride them to yet another title. Isn't it weird how their team just happens to make the playoffs every year? Must be nice.
Your favorite player changes every year.
Wow, so you say that your favorite players in the NFL are Adrian Peterson, Aaron Rodgers, Peyton Manning, and Tom Brady? Crazy that those guys have combined to win the last five MVPs, isn't it? Must just be a coincidence that you happen to like all of them so much, right? Riiight, just happened to work out like that.
You leave the game early when your team is losing.
Miami Heat fans, we are definitely looking at you on this one. For shame, forever.
Your favorite sports teams are from four different places, none of which you grew up in.
A good rule of thumb with regards to fandom is that you stick to your home state or city's teams. If you grew up anywhere in Michigan, then you're supposed to be a Detroit Lions fan. It isn't easy, but that's how it works. If you were raised in Wyoming? Then go with a regional team like the Broncos or Nuggets. But don't ever try to tell us that you're a Miami Heat fan if you've lived in Albuquerque, N.M. for all your life. You aren't fooling anyone, man.
All your favorite teams just happen to also be the most successful franchises in sports history.
If you claim to be a fan of the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Lakers, Duke Blue Devils, and Pittsburgh Steelers, all at the same time, then you are automatically the worst. You aren't fooling anyone, dude. You might as well have "Bandwagon" tattooed on your forehead. Get a life! May the sports gods have mercy on your soul.