No one likes a bandwagon fan. Of this just about any sane person can agree, but the Washington Wizards' decision to add insult to injury by employing a "bandwagon cam" during last night's bashing of the Miami Heat just kind of comes off as classless.
The Heat, of course, are world conquerors at this point with two championships in a row and the era's unquestioned MVP leading the way. This, of course, means people with no connection to South Florida or any previous interest in the team have joined the fandom. Anywhere the team plays, there's guaranteed to be people decked out in Heat apparel. It happens to just about any super-successful sports team.
The Wizards, however, decided to feature these people last night on their Jumbotron in a play of the "kiss cam," called the "bandwagon cam."
— spencer schwink (@Spencer_Schwink) January 16, 2014
Wizards doing a good bit here. pic.twitter.com/EeTZXDrzt8
— Hoop District (@HoopDistrictDC) January 16, 2014Yeah, ribbing the visiting team and their fans is nothing new in sports, but publicly shaming individual people who paid you to show up is just a bit classless.
They may be wearing Heat jerseys, but the Wizards walked away with their money that night.
The Wizards have been lagging in attendance all season. They're 19th in the league so far, and their average is about 83 percent of seats filled. Last night's game was sold out -- a first for them this season. (Meanwhile, the Heat have an average official home attendance of 101 percent.)
The reason is almost certainly those bandwagon fans that helped fill up that arena. Wonder if they'll show up the next time the Heat are in town in such number if they know they could be publicly mocked?
And sure, sports fans are allowed to hate bandwagoners, but aren't the NBA and its team supposed to support and be welcoming to the idea of casual fans?
In any event, if you're a longtime Heat fan who's attending a road game, you might want to break out your Rony Seikaly jersey to protect yourself against such claims.
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