This is a kinder, gentler era of Philly sports fandom. Here’s how it came about.
From Jason Kelce to Joel Embiid, Trea Turner to the Flyers, here's how the new era of Philadelphia sports fandom came to be.
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When it comes to its sports teams, its sports culture, its sports fans, Philadelphia is different. I don’t mean relative to other cities. I mean relative to itself. Something has changed here. A weight has been lifted.
It’s not just that the Phillies are tearing through the National League playoff bracket again after reaching the World Series last year, or that the Eagles are unbeaten after reaching the Super Bowl last season. It’s not even that people here feel a particularly strong sense of connection, stronger than it has been in a while, to the teams and athletes. No doubt they do, but that connection has been pretty hearty in the past, as well.
You can draw a beer-soaked historical line between Phillies players celebrating at Xfinity Live! on Thursday night, in the aftermath of their NLDS victory over the Braves, and Flyers players joining their fans for several cold ones at Rexy’s in the 1970s and ‘80s. And Philadelphia fandom has always been flavored with a kind of underdog sentimentality that cuts against the city’s image (and reality) as the toughest sports town in America. There’s a reason those Rocky clips still get played at home games here, and there’s a reason some people still well up when they see those clips. We’re softies.
What’s different — and there’s no real way to quantify or chart this trend; it’s just something you pick up on if you’ve been here long enough — is this: For a long time, resentment, anger, and dour fatalism defined being a Philadelphia sports fan as much as passion and loyalty and clichés about cheesesteaks and Santa Claus did. And for a long time, that negativity was understandable, even if it was a little too much to take. This city went through a quarter-century in which none of its four major franchises won a championship — 100 seasons! — and kept falling short in heartbreaking ways. Joe Carter, Ronde Barber, Leon Stickle … no need to relive the misery.
So how did Philly get from there to where it is now? Forgiving Alec Bohm last year, giving Trea Turner a standing ovation this year, Jason Kelce becoming a beloved folk hero/podcaster/movie star, Joel Embiid getting 76ers fans to weep with him when he won the NBA MVP award — it has all been so syrupy sweet. Would this outpouring of civic love have gushed forth years ago? Probably not. Here’s why it is now.
There’s still an afterglow from Super Bowl LII
One might have thought that the Phillies’ 2008 World Series victory would have lifted any and all dark clouds that hovered above the fan base. Really, though, it took the Eagles’ mind-blowing run to their first Super Bowl victory — Carson Wentz’s injury, Nick Foles’ excellence, the underdog masks, the Philly Special, the pantsing of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick — to create a wave of good vibrations that ripples still. How many people were afraid their parents or spouses or dear friends would never see the Eagles win the biggest of big games? The nature and timing of 41-33 mattered. It mattered a lot, because …
… the 1964 Generation is fading away.
Look, I hate to be blunt about this, but it’s true. The Phillies’ collapse that year — a 10-game losing streak that cost them a 6½-game lead in the National League with just 12 to go — conditioned hundreds of thousands of baby boomers to presume that any local team’s success was rare and fleeting and doomed to disappear before it blossomed into total ecstasy. It had been 14 years since the Phils had last won the NL pennant, and it would be another 12 before they returned to the postseason. That single season was the only flicker of light and hope in that entire 26-year span, and Chico Ruiz and Gene Mauch snuffed it out. You cannot overstate the effect of ‘64.
More, those fathers and mothers passed on that woe-is-us defensiveness — that belief that, no matter how great or talented or thrilling a Philly team was, its season would end in disappointment — to their sons and daughters. But that attitude has dissipated with each successive generation, in large part because …
… Major League Baseball and the NFL made it much easier to qualify for the playoffs.
Think about it: 1964 was an all-or-nothing proposition for any major-league club and its fans. That’s why it hurt so much when the Phils choked. There were 20 teams then, but just two were eligible for the World Series: the NL winner and the AL winner. Now, with 30 teams and 12 playoff spots, the pressure isn’t to win. It’s to get in, because once you’re in, you have a shot. And that pressure isn’t nearly as great.
The same principle applies to the NFL. In 1960, the Eagles won the East Division; the Packers won the West. Boom: There’s your championship game. The constant expansion — to two conferences, to two wild-card teams in each conference, now to seven playoff teams in each conference — lowers the standard for a satisfying season. Hey, at least they made the playoffs applied to the 2021 Eagles, for instance, and even the 2022 Phillies, and it’ll apply to the Flyers the next time they manage it. And when they do, it will likely be thanks to …
… smart player-personnel executives
Howie Roseman, Dave Dombrowski, and (to a lesser degree, based on the Sixers’ recent history) Daryl Morey are among the most highly regarded and respected team-builders in their respective leagues. And one of the reasons they have thrived is that they have acquired …
… figures who fit the region’s profile.
Stars like Bryce Harper and Kelce and Jalen Hurts. A coach like Nick Sirianni. They emote. They profess their devotion to winning. They (sometimes) pander a bit to the fans. Yeah, they’re good at what they do, but their personalities and public personae make people around here feel good about rooting for them, as does …
… the presence of Citizens Bank Park and the absence of Veterans Stadium.
Hat tip to Ken Rosenthal, from Fox Sports and The Athletic, for this keen observation: For all the good memories of the ol’ concrete doughnut at Broad and Pattison, there were more bad ones, and its aesthetics — the unforgiving Astroturf, the decaying infrastructure, the leaky pipes and scurrying rats throughout its first-floor offices — probably contributed to the nastiness that Philly fans could, in fairness, display. The Bank is much warmer and welcoming, and Lincoln Financial Field creates a far better experience for football fans, too. It’s just harder to be angry in either place than it was at the Vet.