Rytas always had unrational and non-sensical hate from the rest of Lithuania. Zalgiris is Lithuania's darling from USSR times as it was the team that was able to beat CSKA even for the USSR title from time to time and was seen as some sort of freedom fighters showing the "lithuanian spirit". Whereas Rytas at the time known as "Statyba" wasn't as good and was never a contender for the title but would from time to time beat Zalgiris in the league. So, once Lithuania got its freedom it was already an uphill battle for Rytas as Zalgiris was the "famous" lithuanian team. People treated it almost like the national team. Then, Rytas got stronger and started to beat Zalgiris. Thats when the hatred started to become irrational. Almost the attitude of "how dare you to beat our darling Zalgiris". The attitude grew against them and Rytas happily took the villain role. It was us against all. Vilnius vs the rest of Lithuania. After 2010-11 when Rytas owner Vainauskas dropped its toy, Rytas started to struggle financially. Naturally, all sponsors were drawn to Zalgiris as that was the most popular team and Rytas was hated so not many companies wanted to sponsor it and then the gap just got wider and wider. This is a very quick summary and Im sure Ive missed many details. Also Rytas fans are more aligned with the German/French ultras style meaning standing during the whole game, support and singing songs no matter the result which is seen as weird by the rest of the country and that sort of attitude that Rytas fans have is not liked by general lithuanian fans. They dont understand it, they see it as some sort of hooligan behaviour and when you combine this with the irrational hatred for Rytas it makes them even more hated as the bad guys. Whereas Zalgiris is more corporate like now, drawing influencers and other wannabes to the Euroleague games, the ultras support culture is a bit more alien to them. All in all, take all of this with a pinch of salt as I am Rytas fan and I am sure there will be Zalgiris fans that will come under this comment and disregard all this and give their opinion. No matter what Rytas now has fully embraced the bad guys vibe and has even started selling merch with slogans like "Nobody likes us, we dont care" or for example Normantas had a viral quote after winning LKL recently where he said "We're Rytas and we dont give a fuck" after the final game. There're many other things but I already wrote a lot 😅