Is It Time to Ban Bicycling at Night?
The Desertification of Seattle Has Begun
Elevator or Hellevator? Maybe Take the Stairs
No adult should take anything Disney publishes as serious journalism but Seattlest is a knee-jerk, Seahawks freak, so when ESPN ranked its list of Top NFL Fan Bases we were more than a little ticked to see ourselves score so unfavorably.
The chronically East Coast-focused media monster apparently weighs regional desperation and images of morbidly obese cardiac patients ahead of more logical measurements like crowd noise, false start penalties and player consensus. ESPN cited Seattle’s uptight tailgating laws and limited non-season ticket parking as a factor in our lameness. (Expect our lame tailgating to get worse as Ron Sims sold 3.85-acres of Qwest Field’s North Lot to a condo developer last summer.)
The top five “fan bases” reads like a Who’s Who of socially limited rust-belt cities, where either cheese, BBQ, football or some combination thereof are by far the cities' proudest icons. Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Green Bay, Kansas City and Philly (a decent city we’ll concede) round out the top positions with impressive ticket waiting lists and consecutive sell outs but we believe there’s more to legitimate fandom than having the oldest franchises get the automatic nods.
Seattle has culture and football, yet we still make time for both. In spite of our bad weather, injured players, shitty trades, unattractive free agent locale, evangelical tailgating laws and unspeakable BBQ culture people still show up making Qwest Field, like the Kingdome before it, the loudest and toughest atmosphere, weather-withstanding, in the NFL. Bandwagons come and go but Seattle always loves its Hawks, despite the media slights about us being in Alaska or the asinine suggestions that we don’t support our sports. People that have actually been to Seattle who know and play the game respect the passion Seattle has for it. If only the journalists at ESPN had as much insight.
Photograph courtesy of Slightly North from the Seattlest Flickr Pool
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On the first series of the season at Qwest Field, the Hawks went 3-and-out, and were booed off the field by the 12th Man.
Enough said.
Didn't Philly boo McNabb at the draft? Nobody questions their fandom.
Booing is a sign of passion, if you didn't care you wouldn't boo and maybe they were booing the play calling.
Not convinced. Read Joe Gibbs quote in the link.
I am a season ticket holder. I am amazed at the lack of knowledge that most people around me have about the Seahawks, other teams in the NFL and football in general. Yelling at the top of your lungs on 3rd down does not necessarily make you a great fan base, it just means that you can yell.
Most of the Seahawks fans that I have tailgated with don't have a clue about the NFL or football. They are there for other reasons.
1. Everyone else is going.
2. To network for their career/social climbing.
3. It's the party place.
All of which are valid reasons for going to a game, but they are not the primary reasons that fans of the aforementioned cities go to games.
I acknowledge the "East Coast Bias" in sports reporting; however in this case, their rankings are valid.
I've lived in 4 West Coast cities and the fans in each have been more lame than the next.
Booed by Philly fans: McNabb, Mike Schmidt, Santa Claus.
Joe Gibbs knows more about football than anyone here and he gives us due credit.
Mariner fans are one thing, they cheer routine pop flys, true Hawk fans are something different.
Just another reason to kick Ron Sims in the nuts.
Now, to be fair, there are football fans out here. Many who know about football. My friends tend to have knowledge that, to me, seems ridiculous.
They do not attend games, however. And the tailgating... well... it's at a baseball field. That is lame.
Seattle is not even close. Go back a decade, when the Seahawks sucked and they couldn't give away tickets. That doesn't happen in a real football town like Green Bay or Philly.
When your team sucks and is run by incompetent people who threaten to move every year, like the Seahwaks in the early to mid-90s, it takes some time for the fan base to come back and pay attention.
Now, when I see people at the stadium wearing jerseys for the team's backup fullback, nickelback and backup QB, you know these folks are living and dying by every player on the roster.
See also the superfans below the hawks nest. Fat Seafence Guy, Seahawks Pimp Guy, Cousin It Guy and Mariachi guy (plus others), it takes an awesome, diverse fanbase, to produce die-hards like that.
For what it's worth, the "threatening to move the team" thing didn't originate in the 1990's.
Each one of those East Coast cities was threatened in the 1960's with the team moving to greener pastures like.........uh.....Seattle?
Hell, they even raise money for one fan's bout with cancer.
It's also something to be said, Seattle has a strange sports fan-base. All sports. Has since major sports entered (ignoring NHL).
I can tell you, having grown up in green bay, that seattle fans in general don't even come close to comparing.
being a fan in a city like that has a meaning that seattle can't even begin to understand. and I say this having lived in seattle for the past 8 years. seattle is my home, i have season tickets, and i back the seahawks 100%. this is my city, and this is my team.
but I learned that mentality in green bay, where the team literally IS the city. Everyone is a packer fan, and the town literally shuts down for every game.
Chicago, their biggest rival, is a big "cultured" city that loves to look down their nose at the bumpkins to the north. statements like this are right in the same ballpark:
"The top five “fan bases” reads like a Who’s Who of socially limited rust-belt cities, where either cheese, BBQ, football or some combination thereof are by far the cities' proudest icons."
The fact is that for all of the things a smaller town can't have, that big cities can do "better", when it comes to football, nobody does it better than the packers or their fans. it's a point of pride and community that binds everyone together like glue.
that the team IS the proudest icon makes it all the more important. not everyone is lucky enough to be born in a big metropolitan city. natives to seattle have no idea how fortunate they are that they were raised in such a diverse and interesting place. but for those of us that didn't have that opportunity until later in life, you learn that if you can't have everything then you work together to make the best of what you've got.
you can say that green bay is a backwater, that their main contribution to society is paper products. but for all the things that big cities have, there is one thing they don't, and that's a real football team with fans that bleed for them.
this is aided by the fact that since the community is so small, you regularly see players and coaches around town. i lived on the same block as andy reid, current coach of the eagles. the defensive coordinator lived a few blocks away. i've seen mike holmgren riding through town on his harley. they're normal people, and part of the community. there is no distinction between the city and the team. the city needs the team, and the team needs the city.
That isn't even remotely possible here.
So while I believe that it is your duty to back your home team 100% no matter what, and many here in seattle do, the closest Seattle has ever come to feeling like a true football town was when we went to the super bowl. the camaraderie and fellowship i felt in this town was electric.
but green bay has that every week.
so while i agree like those above about the east coast bias, seattle has a long way to go before they can move up on that list.
absofuckinglutely priority 1 is allowing tailgaiting. lacking that absolutely destroys community and a feeling of togetherness that is key.
I think 3mpire nailed it. Seattle is a great place to live and I wouldn't want to live anywhere else, but it is a joke of a sports town.
Unless you are from "back East" you really wouldn't get it.
Seattle's the only place I've ever lived where owning season tickets was a 'dating negative' and usually results in rolled eyes.
this is relevant -- we rank in the top ten in the league according to an SI fan survey for everything except for tailgating... where we rank 28th our of 32.