Buffalo Fans vs Philly Fans – Being a Buffalo Sports Fan and Living outside Buffalo - By: Nathan Houser / Sports

My cousin Nate is a huge Buffalo Sports fan, sadly, he lives in the hell hole of a sports town, Philadelphia. Below are his stories. 


To Start

I’d like to say that I don’t actually live in Philadelphia, but I live about 25 minutes away in
Hockessin, Delaware. I moved to Delaware in August of 2010 when I was 25 years old. I say this just in case there is anyone from Philadelphia who is reading/listening to this I don’t want to have anyone
stating “You can’t say this” or “You can’t say that,” because “You don’t live in Philly” or “You’re not from Philly.” This way everyone knows where I am coming from in my thoughts/opinions.


Philly Fans

            The first thing that people typically state about Philly fans is how terrible they are. That is
something I can both agree and disagree with, but I’ll point out just a few moments that stick out in my head due to being here for it, the fans still talking about it, or it being newsworthy:

• The time one guy intentionally threw up on an 11 year old girl. Yes, you heard that correctly. In 2010, a 21 year old Phillies fan was being ejected from the game and as he was being escorted out he leaned over and put two fingers down his throat and started vomiting onto an off-duty police officer and his 11 year old daughter. He was later charged with aggravated assault and a few other things. There’s not much you can say about that, but it speaks to the quality of fans/people.
• The time they beat up a Redskins super fan. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know a lot about this one because it happened so long ago (1983), but I’ve heard the fans talk about it so I had to look it up. There was a Redskins fan named “Chief Zee,” who would travel for the games in Philly.During one of those games 2 of the Philly fans ripped his clothes off and threw the feather she was wearing on his head to the seats below (they were on the upper deck). Not only that,but apparently the same 2 Philly fans, and 2 others, assaulted him in the parkinglot…breaking his leg. Again, I was not around for this…
• When they threw tribute bracelets on the ice during a loss to the Washington Capitals. In 2016, when Ed Snider (co-founder of the Philadelphia Flyers) died, fans were given plastic bracelets meant to be a tribute and be worm during a home playoff game. The Flyers ended up losing the game 6-1, and the fans were throwing the bracelets onto the ice at the end of the game. Not exactly the way I would want to be remembered.

          You can look up a lot more examples online, but I figured those few are enough to get you
started on why Philly fans are viewed the way they are. Some fan bases don’t deserve the flack they receive, but I think Philly has earned their way into everyone’s “least favorite” category.

Buffalo Fans vs Philly Fans

         Now, I did mention how I both agree and disagree with the public’s view of Philly sports fans,
but here are some things that I think about as differences between Buffalo fans and Philly fans:

• Fair weather. This is a something that I feel every city is prone to do, I mean, everyone loves the team when they are winning. Just look at the Vegas Golden Knights. Do you actually think their fan base would be viewed as being so die hard/passionate if they came into the league and were terrible? I don’t think so. I can only speak to the Philly fans because I am surrounded by them, but I feel Philly fans are some of the worst because if a Philly team of any sport is winning, they are the talk of the town, you can’t get away from it. On the flip side, if the team is doing terribly, the fans here just refuse to talk about the team, or even watch. In Buffalo, no matter how good or bad you’re doing, we stick with you 100% (I guess we like to be tortured).
• Team History. One thing I love about Buffalo fans is WE KNOW OUR HISTORY. Ask any Buffalo fan to give a brief history of any of our franchises and we can go back throughout not only our lifetime, but we can even give a history of the team well before we were even born. This is something I feel no Philly fan has ever been able to do whenever I’ve gotten into a conversation at work/a bar/etc. They can only recall recent history. I’m sure there are plenty of Philly fans out there which can discuss the history, I just haven’t found them yet.
• Passion. You want to talk about something Buffalo and Philadelphia fans are different on,it’s our passion for our franchises. While I feel both cities are extremely passionate, it comes from a different position. I think most of that is because you have the small city of Buffalo(Population 258,612 – in 2017), vs Philadelphia (Population 1.581 Million – in 2017), and that doesn’t include the surrounding areas. For Buffalo, the media has always seemed to be against us in some way. Then you have a city like Philadelphia, who always gets the Prime Time slot, always gets the media coverage, and just seems to be one of their leagues“favorites.” Of course, business is business, and on the East Coast you’re always going to have the big cities getting those positions. Getting back to my point, when you have a large city like Philadelphia, their passion seems to be coming from a position of “I deserve this/I am owed this,” just because they are Philly. Where in Buffalo, our passion comes from the fact we have never won anything, never been given anything, and have always been an“underdog” in every league. Yes, that was a direct shot at the Eagles fans/players calling themselves “underdogs” in last year’s playoffs, despite being the 1 seed. Again, I will never question the Philly fan’s passion, I just feel it comes from a different place…just my opinion.
• General Knowledge of the League/its Players. Another thing that I’ve run into while having conversations with Philly fans is that they just don’t seem to know a lot about what is going on outside of their own team(s). This isn’t a knock on them, I mean, you can focus on whoever you want. I have just found that it’s difficult to talk about any other franchises outside of Philly. On the flip side, Buffalo fans just seem to know everything about everyone.I guess maybe we are the gurus of each league…or maybe we just have nothing better to do than get up in everyone’s business.

How Buffalo Fans are viewed in Philly

        I can definitely say for sure, there doesn’t seem to be any hatred toward any Buffalo fan. In fact,
if I ever talk about Buffalo it seems as though people kind of root for us...I guess that’s because people just simply feel sorry for us.

        From all my discussions with Philly fans, the main thing people always say to me when I discuss
being a Buffalo fan is about the 4 straight Super Bowl losses. The worst part about that is Philly won last year, so Philly fans have only gotten worse about the whole thing (wide-right is apparently a nationwide joke).

       There isn’t much else I can say about how we are viewed because people here just simply don’t
know anything about us. They never get to see us on TV, we have never won anything, and there just
isn’t anything that makes Buffalo jump into anyone’s mind when you talk sports franchises. I’m thinking that is just another part of what makes Buffalo, and its fans, who we are.