Are you a sports fan, or a team fan?

This one's for all of the team sports fans out there.

So recently I've been comparing and contrasting one of my current roommates to one of my previous roommates. They have the same name, and both are self-proclaimed hardcore fans of American Football. During Football season, I could count on both of them to watch every game religiously, and be cheering very loudly at the tv.

Here are where the differences lie.

My current roommate has never been on a football team. He's always wanted to, but he doesn't have the build for it. He does, however, have a great build for tkd. I'm extremely jealous of his extremely long legs relative to his height. Anyway, like a lot of (probably most of) football fans, he's extremely loyal to certain teams, and hates teams that he has no loyalty to, especially the teams that are "rivals" to the teams he supports. He even has this deep hatred towards this one college team, even though he doesn't actually care for college football in general. I took this class freshman year where we briefly studied sports culture. This one author that we read explained that people tend to be loyal to teams that have some sort of connection to them. Usually, people pick teams that are from the area they live in. I asked my roommate, and he confirmed that the reason he picked the teams he's loyal to is because his dad is loyal to them. Anyway, the author explained that the reason people do this is because it allows them to view the team as a part of them. That way, when the team wins, they win. I explained all of this to my roommate, he seemed to agree with the points of the author but thought that supporting teams simply added to the experience and culture.

On the other hand, there's my previous roommate. He played football throughout high school. He is against the form of team supporting mentioned in the last paragraph. He believes that when you do that, you aren't able to appreciate the game as much. You're too busy hating one team that you ignore the great plays that they make and also fail to criticize the faults of the team you support. I should point out: he does like certain teams more than others, but he tries his best to base his opinions on how they play, and not where they're from or anything like that.

Personally, I lean more towards my previous roommate. Then again, I don't really follow team sports, so my opinion probably doesn't hold much weight. I'm curious. What's everyone's thoughts on this?