The Fans

New York City – Meritocracy

The fans in the Big Apple ask for one thing: WIN. They don’t mind being the Evil Empire (see: Yankees) or the Underdog (see: Giants), as long as you get the job done. The old adage of “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere” applies in to New York sports. If you can ball, you have the love of the masses. If you can’t, you can take the first flight out of JFK. Like New York weather, NY’s sports scene can be scorching one day and snowing the other. The fans are intensely passionate and fiercely loyal, but New York is also a cold, unforgiving place. Just ask Mark Sanchez and he will tell you the cold hard truth: that you’re only one butt-fumble away from being boo’ed in your home arena. Amare and Melo were once touted as New York’s white knights, the saving grace for a long-dead Knicks, and combined with Tyson Chandler, another Big Three. Now, whenever there’s an injury, there’s an endless barrage of  “Are the Knicks better without ____.” Except for Tyson Chandler—he’s great.

P.S. Remember when we loved A-Rod?

Los Angeles – Theocracy

If sports is a religion, for Angelino’s it’s not polytheistic. There is one god. And it is the Los Angeles Lakers. Kobe is their Pope and Staples, their Sistine Chapel. Don’t get me wrong, LA loves their other teams, but the Kings won the Stanley Cup and all Los Angeles could talk about was what to do with Andrew Bynum. Clippers are making the best run in their franchise’s history but the Lakers fighting for 8th seed bumps them off the headlines. It’s not that Laker fans aren’t fickle and clamoring for revolution when the Lakers have their struggles (see: Mike Brown, soon-to-be Mike D’Antoni), it’s that they are single-minded in their love or hate of their Lakers. There are no cross-town rivalries. There is no subway series and except for the minority of die-hards and band-wagoners, Los Angeles is Laker-Nation.

P.S. What a wonderful pope he is.