Are west coast fans as rabid as southern football fans?

by Joel Hollingsworth on Aug 29, 2006 10:07 PM EDT in Tennessee Volunteer Football

What does it mean when a college football fan from the west coast says that he had never seen a car flag until he moved to SEC country?

Talking Point: Do west coasters have any clue what it really means to be a football fan?

(And yes, this is meant to incite all of the Cal fans visiting the site this week! Welcome, now let's argue, or as we say down here, let's fuss at each other.)

Discuss.

Update [2006-8-29 22:43:33 by Joel]: By the way, the audio is courtesy of SportsAnimal99.com, the Knoxville radio station with the best coverage of the Vols. You can listen online here. The best shows are the Sports Page (with Dave Hooker between 10:00-12:00 on weekday mornings) and Sports Talk (with John Wilkerson and Jimmy Hyams between 3:00-7:00 p.m.) Check 'em out, if you get a chance. Excellent programming.

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I don't need a flag on my car...

...to make me a football fan. It's a cultural thing. we just don't do the car-flag in The Bay Area. Now that I live here in Austin, I see them all the time. Just like they have stickers here on the back of SUV's here proclaiming their childrens' school and sports affilition. It's regional. Never saw them before I came here.

Am I a football fan? Would I be in this blog if I were not?

See you at the game!

Go Bears!

by AustinBear on Aug 30, 2006 12:28 PM EDT reply actions

I agree . . .

. . . with that, AustinBear, and thanks for coming over here. There are rabid sports fans everywhere. Would you agree, though, that there is a higher concentration of rabid football fans in the south and that, as a group, there are more that take it more seriously?

Just wondering what your thoughts are. Hope you have a good trip to K-Town.

Go Vols!

by Joel Hollingsworth on Aug 30, 2006 1:08 PM EDT reply actions

Concentration is the right word...

Though the San Francisco Bay Area has many rabid fans, it also has a population of over 7,000,000 (about 9,000,000 including Sacramento, 1 hour away).

LA has over 16,000,0000, closer to 20,000,000 if you throw-in San Diego. That's just the state's two big metro areas...Nashville and Knoxville combined are about 2,000,000. Fill up Neyland and you have 5% of that population. Get 5% of of just SoCal's population and you'd need a stadium of 1,000,000.

So my point is, there are lots of rabid fans out west. They are just more diluted by the scores of fans of other things (soccer, surfing, rugby, etc.) that also populate the greatly populated state of CA (pushing 40MM, think about that next time you watch the olypmics and they show the populations of entire countries (e.g. - Australia 20MM). Anyway, yes, I'd agree the concentration is greater, but not the number. Also, in southern cities with larger more diverse populations (Atlanta, Houston, Miami, etc.), the concentration is also lower than other places (e.g. - Knoxville) in the south. Just my observation and I travel extensively.

Can't wait to get to Knoxville. I've always wanted to go to a game at Neyland. Now I get to see Cal play there. What a bonus!

Go Bears.

by AustinBear on Aug 30, 2006 6:34 PM EDT reply actions

Agreed.

Nice comment. Knoxville itself is only about 180,000. If you assume everyone in Neyland is from town, you have more than half the town at the game. There's a great overhead shot of Knoxville taken during the World's Fair back in the 80's, I believe. It was taken during the UT-Alabama game, and the World's Fair was empty, the stadium packed. A bit of perspective.

If you assume that everyone in the stadium is from out of town, you've increased the population of your city by roughly 50%.

The actual numbers are surely somewhere in the middle.

Bottom line: you're going to see a lot of orange and a lot of car flags.

Go Vols!

by Joel Hollingsworth on Aug 30, 2006 10:45 PM EDT reply actions