Why are you a fan of the teams you love?

It sounds like a simple question, but the answer may reveal more about America than sports. For generations, loyalty to a team was rooted in geography. You cheered for the local club because it represented your city, your neighborhood, and your community. The Dodgers belonged to Brooklyn. The Broncos belonged to Denver. The Mariners belonged to Seattle.

But does that still hold true in the twenty-first century?

In this episode of Plausibly Live, Dave Bowman explores the changing nature of sports fandom in an era of fantasy leagues, social media, corporate ownership, and constant mobility. Why do we support the teams we support? Is it where we live, where we grew up, the players we admire, or simply the stories that captured our imagination as children?

Along the way, Dave dives into the growing controversy over taxpayer-funded stadiums, the ongoing battles involving franchises seeking new facilities, and whether fans should continue subsidizing billionaire owners. He also examines the fascinating ownership models used in Japanese baseball and Korean professional sports, asking whether America could ever adopt a similar approach.

From the Brooklyn Dodgers and Ebbets Field to the Denver Broncos, Philadelphia Flyers, and Seattle Mariners, this is a conversation about sports, identity, community, and what happens when the connection between a team and a place begins to fade.

It is a thought-provoking look at sports history, stadium politics, Major League Baseball, and the future of fandom itself.

There is something wonderfully old-fashioned about thisepisode. Not old in the sense of worn out, but old in the way a good highway diner is old, or the way a favorite ball cap becomes part of a man’s identity.

This is not a polished studio production wrapped in synthetic perfection. It is one man, a new recorder, a road stretching westward across the Hood Canal Bridge, and the quiet realization that sometimes the best conversations happenwhen nobody is trying too hard.

In this stream-of-consciousness drive along Highway 101toward the Sequim Irrigation Days Parade, Dave wanders through the strange landscape where technology, nostalgia, frustration, and simple beauty all collide.

One minute he is wrestling with computer equipment, Adobe Audition, and the financial gymnastics of avoiding a thousand-dollar computer purchase by spending hundreds on “solutions” that may not solve anything at all. The next, he is watching cloud-covered Olympic Mountains drift past the windshield while reflecting on why driving itself feels almost spiritual.

Along the way, there are thoughts about Washington State gasprices, climate politics, aging technology, self-driving cars, old software that still works better than modern replacements, and the unsettling possibility that future generations may view driving the way we now view horseback riding.

Mostly, though, this episode is about motion. About roads.About memory. About the small moments between destinations that somehow become the parts of life we remember most clearly. The Pacific Northwest rolls byoutside the window, and for a little while, you ride shotgun.

Afternoons Live with Dave and John from December 27, 2011

https://davidraybowman.com/2026/03/23/icebergs-are-no-danger/