Are you a fan of the Boston Red Sox?
Or the Phoenix Suns?
What about the Indianapolis Colts?
Now how many people were fans of them before each became contenders for their respective championships?
The answer would be not too many.
So what has changed?
One word. Bandwagon.
According to Urban Dictionary, bandwagon is when someone adopts a popular point of view for the primary purpose of recognition and/or acceptance by others.
As an avid Golden State Warriors fan for all of my life, I have noticed bandwagoning to an extreme.
Now I had been going to Warriors games all my life, in which the games would only be sold out when the Lakers or Bulls would come to town.
But yet the fans who would be there every game were loyal to the Warriors, their faces showed the wear and depression that became synonymous with the name.
We loved the Warriors, no matter how crappy and depressing they might have been on any given night.
We waited in agony every unsuccessful season, watched in horror at every horrible draft choice and every ghastly free agent signing.
But during the 2006-2007 season, after missing the playoffs for 13 straight years, the Warriors had a magical run in which they made the playoffs and advanced to the second round; beating the no. 1 seeded Dallas Mavericks.
During that season I started to see Warriors jerseys start popping up everywhere, started hearing things like “how about them Warriors” or “It’s about time” from people who had previously not been a fan of the Warriors or even followed basketball.
But the bandwagon can empty just as fast as it fills up, just take a look at the Warriors now, after missing the playoffs last year and sporting a losing record this season, do you still hear people talking about the Warriors?
Definitely not as much.
This is the thing that irritates me.
If you have a favorite team you stick by that team, through the good and the bad, because you are connected to that team, you don’t kick them to the curb after a couple losses.
So please people, don’t be another sheep, jumping on random teams bandwagons because the masses do. Stay with your team, support them, love them.