[Boomcoach]

Originally Posted by rudel.dietrich

College sports fandom was always bizarre to me when I lived there. People would become fans of university sports, wear there apparel and keep up with them. But they were not alumni, knew no one that was and in most cases had never set set foot on the university campus.

Here university sports is mostly ignored so it was weird to go soenwhere where it was followed so closely.

From following European, mostly Premiere League, football for quite a while now, I think that, maybe because there is not a European equivalent of the US college sports scene, support for the local football club is very similar in nature to how Americans root for their college teams.

• While there are passionate supporters for US professional teams, they are nowhere near as crazy as support for college teams.
• Fans of both tend to accept, to some degree, the team's station in life. West Ham supporters are not expecting to win the Prem anytime soon. they want to improve, avoid relegation, perform well against regional rivals, but they know that they are not a Big Six team. Similarly, a team in a smaller conference isn't expecting to make the College Football Playoffs; they want to do well in their conference, get into a Bowl game and win that.Conversely, every NFL team is on fairly level terms, financially, and should expect to make the playoffs every few years.
• Related to the previous point, European teams do not pack up and move to another city. As fortunes wax or wane, they move up and down through the pyramid, but Notts County is still Notts County. they may have once been in the top league, not they are 3rd or 4th division, but they are still the same team, in the same place, with the same history.