State Limits

After a good five days off to take care of my midterms, I am back on the job with a small note. Sundays always mean football so I'll make a small comment about an interesting geographical debate that takes place in both football and sports in general.

My entire life I've been a Green Bay Packer fan. There has been no confusion or doubt about this fact. No team has ever tempted my appreciation. One of the few consistencies in my life has been my dedication to the Packers.

Yet, I am from Michigan. The state does have a team in the Detroit Lions. The majority of the people in the state do like the Lions. I understand the Detroit sympathy. I like the Pistons, Red Wings and Tigers (all from Detroit) but I love the Green Bay Packers over the Lions. Why?

The fact is I come from a part of the state that has more in common with Green Bay. The Packers feel like a local team for most people of the Upper Peninsula. I come from the central area of this part of the state and thus I am directly above Wisconsin and only share director border with Wisconsin. For me to travel to the lower part of the state is longer than for me to go 60 miles into Wisconsin to hit Detroit.

Most people from the most populated cities in the UP also prefer the Green Bay Packers. These cities are also located in the central area (Escanaba, Menonimee, Iron Mountain and Marquette) and see closer affiliation to the Packers than anyone else. I don't know how people from the Western or Eastern areas feel. The Vikings are closer on the West and the Lower Peninsula (the gateway to Detroit) is closer on the East side, but I still think a good percentage are still Packers fans because across the Upper Peninsula is a manner of life that looks and feels like Green Bay than it does Detroit.

Then why don't people from this area also prefer the Milwaukee Bucks and Brewers? That city is only two hours south of Green Bay and still closer to the UP then Detroit is, yet most people in the UP go with Detroit sports on this subject. I think there are a few reasons. First, Milwaukee isn't anything like Green Bay. It's a larger city in every way. The feeling of local connection and empathy is lost. Green Bay has 100,000 people, but has no skyscrapers or major urban areas. It looks like a larger version of any city in the UP.

The second reason has to deal with the history of both teams in Milwaukee. The Bucks have always been a terrible franchise more famous for great players starting out there and then leaving to go bigger better careers with better teams. The Milwaukee Brewers before were the Milwaukee Braves, but that franchise left to go to Atlanta. It had a great credential in housing Hank Aarron, but some prestige was lost when they left and were replaced by a new team, the Brewers.

Then looking at Detroit you have one of the oldest and most heralded teams in MLB history with the Tigers. That team remains a landmark for both the city and the state. The level of excitement that state had a year ago with the 2006 team shows how treasured they still are. And the Pistons are one of the most successful teams of the modern era in the NBA. That sport was a late bloomer for national attention anyways. There isn't a long history like with other sports so the success of the Pistons has been its link to captivating the rest of the state.

The other sports have looser ties to the area than football does. As I said in another post, a sport seems to represent an area. The sport of interest for the Upper Peninsula is football. The most unquestioned fact about the UP is love for Green Bay Packers football.

There is also another curious fact. Most teams are represented in a small number of states and a few states also have multiple teams. One team is also placed housed within a district instead of a state (Washington Redskins). Considering few states just house one team, state crossing for team love is more likely the case than not. It's even been reported recently that Buffalo Bills will start playing exhibition games in Toronto because they have a lot of fans there so it goes beyond just state crossing there.

It's a silly idea to think a person from one state has to like the team of that state. The world of sports appreciation is much more nuanced than that. Looking at the Green Bay Packers and their unique bond to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, it seems more natural than odd that that many Packer backers would come from there.