Team sports fandom is a massive but curious phenomenon. For instance, why are almost all modern sports team fandoms set up around a geographic locus, such as the Atlanta Braves, the Kansas City Chiefs, and the New York Knicks? Why not have instead national teams called, say, the Republicans, the Small Business Owners, the Episcopalians, the College Graduates, the Blue-Eyed Blonds, and so forth? Note that many American local newspapers tended to have names rather like that in the past.