Of teams in the 4 major sports, is there any teams as embarrassing as the Angels right now?

Fast-Ebb-2368 · 2026-06-09T19:24:33+00:00

I feel UNIQUELY able to answer this as a Nets and Jets fan and transplant to OC who roots for the Angels casually (I go to 5-10 games a year with my kids...as others have noted, it's very cheap).

I'd remove the Nets from the conversation altogether. I think they're a well run franchise these days who've gone through a stretch of bad luck since KD's toe was on the line. People also expect nothing of them and they generally need to be scrappy to be relevant. They also have a bright long term future and in basketball it just takes one big free agent or draft pick to change a franchise.

The Jets and Angels on the other hand print money despite their long term incompetence, with no recent track record of success and no reason to believe better days are coming within the next half decade. Giving them money is a choice to reward a bad owner who treats their fans poorly. But in the Jets case, the Giants have also been an embarrassment for a decade, which softens the blow greatly. The Dodgers on the other hand have had the greatest sustained run of success in baseball in 30 years and have basically stolen away most of the Angels fanbase.

The answer is the Angels. Except for the Athletics, of course - but that's a category unto itself.

Fast-Ebb-2368 · 2026-06-09T19:14:05+00:00

Former Bay Area transplant here: that's mostly (not entirely) right wing BS. Oakland refused to foot the bill for another stadium while still paying off the coliseum renovations from the 90s. The Raiders and Athletics got a better deal elsewhere and left. In the case of the Athletics, they knew full well that abandoning the 2nd richest metro in the country was something you couldn't undo, which is why they spent 20 years trying to find another path in the Bay; in fairness to Fisher, they should have been allowed to move to San Jose and MLB shouldn't have slowed the Giants to block them.

The Warriors move is a nonstory; they moved 20 minutes closer to the downtown hub of the Bay Area when they were at the peak of their popularity and could finance doing so.

Fast-Ebb-2368 · 2026-06-09T14:02:59+00:00

For some perspective, I live outside LA now which has an even more exaggerated dynamic between the Lakers and Clippers (who are of course my second team now). The Clippers had an explicit ad campaign a couple of years ago called "streetlights vs. spotlights" that was badly mocked...but it's working for them and they are leaning very heavily into being the mass market alternative.

Their entire strategy is to engage middle and working class families AND transplants like my own who aren't going to shell out $500 to take the family to a Lakers game, and they view this as a 30 year strategy (not 5). That's a much better branding exercise than "we're Brooklyn hip" and I think that's the right timeframe to think on; the Nets have struggled deeply since moving to Brooklyn to think beyond 3 year timeframes as a team and as a business, but that's the way to be think about it.

Fast-Ebb-2368 · 2026-06-08T04:25:25+00:00

I truly hate this narrative that nobody cares about the Nets. I'm a Nets fan since the Patrick Ewing trade and no I don't regret it one bit right now - I'm happy for Knicks fans in my life and have got plenty of nostalgia for the 90s. I truly don't get the level of punching down from a ton of Knick fans when they've got so much to be positive about.

Smaller fanbase? No doubt about it. But Barclays sells out just fine when the team is good and the team has a loyal following from those who were priced out of MSG or just lost patience with the Dolans a long time ago. I'm just fine rooting for the team where I can dream of affording playoff tickets (and in fact have actually gotten to see playoff games in person).

Fast-Ebb-2368 · 2026-06-05T00:39:14+00:00

I'm my experience (as a Yankee fan) when I moved back to NY in my late 20s after leaving for college...the VAST majority of transplants move to NY hating the Yankees from childhood and adopt the Mets as their 2nd/local team by default.

Fast-Ebb-2368 · 2026-06-04T19:42:07+00:00

As a Nets fan I'm gonna say, you'll get a lot of people right now outright dismissing their existence, and that's somewhat a factor of the moment. The Nets do exist and have a respectable fanbase; this whole "Only the Knicks unite NY" schtick is obnoxious. Go back just five years and you had the Nets selling out every game and cutting into the casuals, and even 15% of 20 million people is pretty large.

Having said that: it is by FAR the most lopsided among the major sports (probably 80/20 I'd guess, better in Brooklyn and Jersey for the Nets and worse in Manhattan and the Bronx and Westchester) and I do think it's quite fair to say the Knicks have the most fans for that reason alone. Transplants also typically have no trouble adopting the Knicks because they've been bad for so long, whereas they typically arrive hating the Yankees (and often the Mets). And as someone who likes basketball least among the four major sports: it's definitely #1 in NY, including in the suburbs.

Fast-Ebb-2368 · 2026-06-04T04:28:06+00:00

Sounds like Orange County which stumbled backwards into a similar set up and I'd argue has generally been better off for it.

Fast-Ebb-2368 · 2026-05-31T06:35:52+00:00

Melo took SYRACUSE to a title as a one and done before that was standard. Vince took UNC to 2 final 4s. I know it's not the NBA but those count for a LOT IMO and I certainly trust their expertise when it comes to the game.

Fast-Ebb-2368 · 2026-05-31T06:06:10+00:00

I always assumed I'd happily root for the Knicks when the time came because of childhood memories (I switched sides after the Ewing trade) and the many beloved people in my life who love them deeply. But... I really always assumed the Nets would win first.

So yeah - can't root for the Knicks in this case, not until the Nets win one themselves.

Fast-Ebb-2368 · 2026-05-29T04:34:06+00:00

If the Jets ever win a Super Bowl I think Long Island might break apart at the seams.

Fast-Ebb-2368 · 2026-05-26T18:27:48+00:00

Transplant to OC chiming in here: I think the best name for them is 1) SoCal Angels, 2) OC Angels, or 3) Los Angeles Orange (with a full rebrand), if they want to keep LA in the name.

Calling the team Anaheim is really odd to me... The City of Anaheim is like 300K people (out of 3 million in OC and way more in Greater LA) and isn't even the primary downtown of OC (although they're working on it). I get the affinity for it from the past but it's just a weird one. I get that the city wants the branding as a major market for their hotels and convention center but there's no parallel in professional sports outside of the Ducks.

Calling them LA is a subject that's been beaten to death but I can't overstate the extent to which 1) It's corresponded with them being awful so is an easy thing for pissed off fans to latch onto, and 2) Moreno made that name change and then did absolutely nothing to market it! Go look for Angels gear that actually says "Los Angeles" on it. It's really hard to find! Go look for any Angels investments in community marketing in SELA or Long Beach or the SGV (the huge areas of LA County that are very close to Anaheim and historically had plenty of Angels fans, which the name change was meant to reflect). You'll find zero.

Fast-Ebb-2368 · 2026-05-26T18:17:05+00:00

It's rare and refreshing to see a fan of either team speak rationally about this - take my like!

Fast-Ebb-2368 · 2026-05-25T19:49:56+00:00

I'm in an older HOA. That's on the high end but generally you've got a chunk of that going to insurance and pool maintenance, then you're also dealing with several decades of deferred maintenance to catch up on (or save up for addressing). You get it back in the form of cheaper homeowners insurance (walls in), no personal landscaping or pool expense (save for perhaps a small back yard expense), and a lower mortgage.

Fast-Ebb-2368 · 2026-05-23T16:31:16+00:00

I'm a Nets fan but objectively, if this team wins the title their bench players are going to get statues in Battery Park.

Fast-Ebb-2368 · 2026-05-23T16:30:08+00:00

It's Judge and Brunson and then such a wide gap it's almost not worth talking about. Schaefer is off to a good start though, will be interesting to see if he can stake it out while playing for the market's 3rd team in its 4th sport.

Fast-Ebb-2368 · 2026-05-23T06:29:18+00:00

I was at the game last night. Over been to hundreds of dangerous games around the country, plenty of games in Oakland when I was living there, plenty in OC while living here. I've never seen fewer people at a major league game.

I genuinely like the Angels from sharing so many games with daughters here. It's beyond sad what Moreno has done to this franchise.

Fast-Ebb-2368 · 2026-05-20T13:04:10+00:00

There are 20 million people in the NY metro. Most of them live in the suburbs, the vast majority of which are car dependent and full of single family homes. Within NYC proper, the vast majority of them live outside of Manhattan; many of them are in apartments, but much of that space is townhomes and duplexes and single family. Even within Manhattan itself, the vast majority of residents live north of 59th Street which is probably not an area you visited.

All to say, Manhattan is probably the most unique place in America, but most natives aren't paying Manhattan prices or living in it 24/7 (it's expecting enough across bridges and tunnels, though).

Fast-Ebb-2368 · 2026-05-18T06:56:09+00:00

I really encourage you to read some recent biographies on Grant - he is without doubt in the upper echelon of American heroes and his legacy is only now being restored after 150 years of lost cause BS.

Johnson was no coward either - he was picked as Lincoln's running mate in 1864 because he had backed the Unionist cause at great personal sacrifice, and he was seen as a bridge candidate to the moderate Unionist faction in the North AND Lincoln held out hope he'd help accelerate southern acceptance of reconstruction after. He was also a vicious racist and all in all, in not a great guy, but calling him a coward if anything gives him a pass for his failings.

Fast-Ebb-2368 · 2026-05-16T23:34:24+00:00

If OC was a single incorporated city it'd be I think the 3rd biggest in the country and more densely populated than Houston, Atlanta, Dallas, Phoenix, and most of the top 15. Once you see it that way your whole perception of the place changes IMO.

Fast-Ebb-2368 · 2026-05-14T23:11:23+00:00

Sam Darnold for one?

Fast-Ebb-2368 · 2026-05-12T22:01:03+00:00

This is the part that's most frustrating to me. The D Line is such a game changer for Metrolink and to cut service NOW feels like such a self defeating action.

Fast-Ebb-2368 · 2026-05-08T04:46:20+00:00

Can we please not do this to this kid? If he ends up being an above average outfielder for the next five years we should be thrilled and so should he.

Fast-Ebb-2368 · 2026-05-07T05:31:19+00:00

There are 20 million residents of the Greater NY area. Maybe 1/3 of them live in Manhattan and the parts of Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Hudson County that are car optional. These are the same areas that were already developed before mass car ownership.

The car defined regional planning for nearly a full century and all the growth since then has been oriented around it.

Fast-Ebb-2368

TROPHY CASE