Disenfranchised: Imagine, If You Will, Your Favourite Football Team Leaving Its Hometown

American tradition, European nightmare: when franchises or clubs relocate, cultures clash.

I’ve always had trouble getting into US sports. From a fan perspective, that is. And God knows I tried, because all the cool kids were into the NFL, NBA, NHL.

I did play basketball for a bit. And I got into baseball for five minutes after watching Major League with Charlie Sheen.

But I’ve never been able to enjoy watching American sports the way I enjoy football. My eyes are simply too slow for ice hockey. And if I wanted to watch people stand around for minutes on end wondering what to do next, I’d just head down to Stephansplatz, Vienna, and watch tourists instead of the NFL.

What weirds me out the most, though, is the idea that your team might just up and leave.

And Americans seem to be fine with that.

Take the Las Vegas Raiders – one of the most iconic franchises in the NFL.

When I was a kid, they were in Los Angeles. Originally, they were founded in Oakland – 400 miles up north (that’s roughly the distance between Munich and Dortmund, if you need a German reference). The franchise moved back to Oakland in 1995. And now? Las Vegas.

Sure, there were protests. People were angry. Rightly so. But in the end, most fans just shrugged and kept supporting them anyway.

“The Raiders could literally change planets and the fan base will stay,” says my mate TD aka Terrordyne, an LA-based electronic music artist. “Raiders fans will always stay with them, no matter where they go.”

TD’s favourite teams are the LA Dodgers – who moved there from Brooklyn in 1958 – and the LA Kings. What would he do if the Kings moved away?

“I'd still support the Kings if they moved anywhere in the country”, says TD. “I love the team, the players and the organization overall. Teams leaving their city happens.”

I can’t wrap my head around that.

I mean, if my club – Arminia Bielefeld – ever decided to relocate to, say, Castrop-Rauxel or Kassel, there’d be riots. Actual, literal riots. With me at the front line. And I’m convinced they’d lose 95% of their fanbase overnight. Maybe more.

To understand this cultural difference, one has to understand the culture.

It’s not just about geography. It’s about belonging. Identity. The irrational glue that binds people to a club, to a badge, to a postcode that hasn’t changed since 1905.

In Europe, a football club isn’t just a franchise. It’s a local institution. For some even a religion. Rooted in community. It shapes neighbourhoods. Families. Friendships. It’s the reason someone keeps a pub running despite never making rent in time. It’s the tattoo on someone’s calf. It’s the thing that gives a one-industry town something to care about long after the industry’s dead. It’s decades of lore embroidered on a kit. Memories. Hope. Tragedy. And it all happened in this town. You can’t just reset that. As always, there is German word for this: Traditionsverein, which translates to traditional club, but the implications are so much more.

In the States, your franchise moves cities. In Europe, your club is the city.

Dr. Andreas Hüttl agrees.

Dr. Hüttl is an attorney by day and passionate defender of traditional football by night. He is a lifelong fan of Hannover 96 and a vocal critic of investor Martin Kind, who for the longest time has been trying to erode Germany’s 50+1 model. The model means clubs can’t be majority-owned by investors – the club has to hold at least 51 percent of voting rights.

“The club’s location defines its history and roots. I’m a fan of the club from the city where I was born and where I live”, says Dr. Hüttl. “I find it very hard to imagine staying a fan of the club if it were to move away. Among ultra groups, there’s a saying: For the city and the club. And although I’m not part of any ultra group myself, that phrase captures perfectly what it’s all about – for them, and for me too.”

He highlights the effect a relocation would have on the fan base.

Dr. Hüttl:

“If the club were to relocate, the immediate effect would be that fewer home games could be attended, depending on the distance to the new location. The ‘next generation’ of fans in the original home city would likely be cut off as well – children and young people would no longer be able to attend a home match ‘just like that.’ Overall, the connection to the club would almost certainly be severely affected. European football offers a clear example of this with FC Wimbledon’s move to Milton Keynes.”

He has a point. When Wimbledon FC was relocated to Milton Keynes in 2003 – rebranded, rehomed, repackaged as MK Dons – didn’t just disagree with this business decision. It was a betrayal. Fans didn’t follow. Not even the club mascot Wandle the Womble moved to Milton Keynes.

They started a new club instead. AFC Wimbledon. They began at the very bottom of the pyramid, in the ninth tier. Proper Sunday league stuff. But they did it anyway. The fans preferred to restart from the very bottom over losing their soul.

Dr. Hüttl was born and raised in Hannover. Naturally, he feels a stronger connection to the home base of Hannover 96. But you can ask any fan of any German club, no matter whether they were born in the team’s city or not: They will share Hüttl’s sentiment that “the club’s location defines its history and roots”. Because even if it’s not your hometown, you know and respect that the club’s heritage is linked to the city it was founded in.

Would an FC Kaiserslautern fan born and raised in Dresden want the club to relocate, let alone go along with the move? Never. Regardless of personal ties to the hometown of a team, its fans would riot if the club decided to move. And would probably pull off an AFC Wimbledon.

It paid off for the rebel fans. AFC Wimbledon climbed back up, slowly, stubbornly. Because what they loved wasn’t the bottom line or a boardroom decision – it was something else entirely. Something more human, more inconvenient, more sacred.

You can buy players. You can’t buy that.

Germany’s 50+1 model has long held up as the last line of defence against full-on football feudalism and the spectre of investors moving a club somewhere else.

But even Germany has its fair share of threats. Because you don’t need to move a club out of town to destroy football culture.

Before they settled on Leipzig, Red Bull tried to weasel their way into German football by acquiring a club with a bit of history. They went shopping. Düsseldorf, 1860 München, St. Pauli. Made them offers they could easily refuse.

The fact they even tried to buy St. Pauli tells you everything you need to know about how little the Red Bull suits grasp football culture.

And it’s not like St. Pauli didn’t need the money. They were in the fourth tier at the time. Skint. Half a step from folding. Most German clubs could do with a cash injection. But selling off the name, the philosophy, the identity of FC St. Pauli in exchange for Red Bull’s millions? Not even close.

And this wasn’t even about relocation. No stadium move. Just a change of ownership model. A rebrand. New name. New crest. New colours. St. Pauli walked away. Because that’s not how football works. Not here.

Eventually, Red Bull found a workaround. They purchased the Oberliga licence of a small club in East Germany – SSV Markranstädt – and rebranded the team as RB Leipzig (short, officially, for RasenBallsport, ie. ball sports on grass, skirting the "no sponsor in the club name" rule with the elegance of a crowbar), and poured in more money than sense. And yet, years later, even as a Bundesliga club with a Champions League budget, to most football fans they’re still just a marketing operation. No true German football fan likes RB Leipzig.

Here’s all you need to know about the so-called football culture of RB Leipzig: they sponsored fan travel to the DFB-Pokal semi-final in Stuttgart, and still couldn’t fill the away end.

You can buy a club. You can’t buy culture.

Same story in Austria. Red Bull bought Austria Salzburg, changed the name, the colours, the crest, the stadium. Fans weren’t having it. So they did the only thing they could: they left. And they restarted the club from scratch, following the AFC Wimbledon model. Called it what it used to be called. Wore purple again. Because for some people, tradition isn’t something you market – it’s something you protect.

Even renaming a club can be enough to spark full-blown protests. In England, Hull City tried to become “Hull Tigers” at one point. The decision was met with outrage.

Because football fans, by and large, don’t want to be rebranded. They want to be recognised. Fans play a huge part in shaping the culture of a club, making them spiritual owners, if you will. Ripping a club out of its community is akin to ripping its heart out, leaving fans feeling, well, disenfrachised.

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It’s curious, then, how different things are across the pond. When the Cleveland Browns franchise moved to Baltimore, fans stayed angry – but the NFL awarded Cleveland a new Browns team a few years later, like it was a custom club in FIFA. Like you could just generate a new one. And the fans accepted it. Kind of. When the Seattle SuperSonics became the Oklahoma City Thunder, people were unhappy, yes, but in the end they just... moved on.

You can’t imagine that happening in, say, Gelsenkirchen. Or Marseille. Or Napoli. It would be like relocating the Vatican to Frankfurt and expecting everyone to keep lighting candles.

But maybe that’s the point. Maybe it’s not about who’s more loyal or who cares more. Maybe it’s just a different deal. American sports are built differently. Cities bid for teams. Owners treat franchises like property portfolios or Burger King restaurants. Fans are more used to change. It’s part of the ecosystem. Nobody loves it, but nobody’s shocked, either.

That made me curious. How do European fans of US sports feel about franchises changing cities like used underwear?

I asked Ninia LaGrande.

Ninia and I go way back. She’s a presenter, author, podcaster – we know each other from the old poetry slam days. These days, she’s also known as a massive American football fan. Specifically: the Chiefs. She works as a German-speaking NFL expert for the biggest German-language Chiefs podcast, and was previously part of the Zirkus Sideline project.

Her love for the game started with the Braunschweig Lions. She picked the Kansas City Chiefs as her NFL team because of the colour red – and the Mahomes-Kelce link-up. Fair enough.

That’s not so different from how many Europeans pick their clubs. I know loads of people who became fans because of a certain player, a colour, a kit. Everyone has their origin story. In that sense, the logic’s the same. Sport is sport.

So how would Ninia feel if the Kansas City Chiefs moved away?

Ninia:

“I’m not too emotional about it. The Chiefs haven’t always been the Chiefs anyway – they were originally founded as the Dallas Texans. In fact, there were apparently some considerations last year about relocating the franchise for tax reasons. But for now, everything’s staying the same, and they’re even planning to renovate the stadium – which isn’t something you usually do if you’re about to move. On the other hand, of course, there’s a lot of association with the team name – certain songs, chants, and so on – so that would definitely feel odd at first. But for me, it’s more about the team’s mentality, the players and coaches.”

But surely there must be some sensitivity, even in US sports, for the connection to the hometown of a team? I mean, the Celtics without Boston or the Eagles without Philadelphia?

“Philly is a good example”, Ninia agrees. “I don't think anyone here can imagine the team relocating or changing its name. The fans just wouldn’t stand for it.”

She concedes that many teams have strong links to the city they’re based in. And there are cases where fans staged massive protests when the owners announced a move.

Ninia:

“The most well-known example is probably the protests by Chargers fans in 2017. The Chargers were originally founded in LA but moved to San Diego just a year later, where they stayed for 56 years. They played in one of the oldest stadiums there, and the owner couldn’t reach an agreement with the city on building a new one – so they moved back to LA. After the decision, fans publicly burned merchandise, and businesses in San Diego even joined forces to try and stop the move. For example, moving companies refused to take on the job. It didn’t work. The Chargers are back in LA.”

This is all part of the ownership and franchise model in the US.

Whereas in Europe, clubs often were grassroots movements, usually founded by workers, railwaymen, factory employees, students, local dreamers. Jordan Wise writes that football is entering a new era where teams are cultural platforms. I’d argue this is what many clubs in Europe historically are. The badge is not just another brand. The sense of place is stitched into the kit. The community invests in the club and the club invests in the community.

The latter applies to many US franchises, too. After the wildfires that ravaged Los Angeles, TD’s team, the Kings, got to work.

TD:

“The team immediately organized multiple fundraisers and toy drives to give back to the community, people who lost everything and to aid and assist the first responders. Natural disasters like the wildfires have a way of bringing the city and community together. I was very proud that the Kings were heavily involved in the relief efforts.”

And for TD, this is bigger than the team’s hometown heritage: “It wouldn't feel right to me personally to abandon my team just because they left.”

Taking pride in the club’s charitable causes – that’s definitely something I can relate to. I can see where he’s coming from. The difference is: Arminia could cure cancer, I’d still go ballistic if they left Bielefeld.

It’s not that Americans don’t care. They just care differently. And their team moving is just part and parcel of US sports.

My best guess? In Europe, from a fan perspective, the sport for a long time has been about cultural identity more than anything else, which is tied to a city. For Americans, it’s rooted in entertainment. Teams and their leagues are entertainment brands, larger than their cities. Larger than the romantic attachment to a specific longitude and latitude.

And for owners and shareholders, entertainment, ultimately, is about profit.

“At the end of the day, the NFL is all about money”, says Ninia LaGrande. And if the owners find better financial conditions, more tax breaks, or the opportunity to build a better stadium in another city, that’s definitely tempting.”

The worry, of course, is that this kind of thing – the relocations, the rebrandings, the full-scale identity thefts – might not stay an American oddity. They just have a head start.

I’m not naive. Just like in America, a majority of European clubs are profit-driven. Investors or not, running a professional football team is not simply about breaking even anymore. These times are over. Even at St. Pauli.

As I said, I am not naive. I know we can’t turn back the hands of time. But I am a hopeless romantic. Maybe we can stop the clocks, just for a bit. Can you turn a profit without selling your soul? I think so.

Because we’re already seeing the cracks. Multi-club ownership is no longer the exception. The same holding companies that once specialised in budget airlines and beverage empires now own multiple football clubs across different countries – sometimes even within the same league.

(On a sidenote, but in the context of relocating clubs: In a perverted turn of events, the Russian Imperialists are setting up counterfeit versions of clubs from the occupied regions in Ukraine. As Nick Ames reports in The Guardian, rip-off Zarya Luhansk is taking part in the Russian league system on Russian soil, while the original Zorya Luhansk competes in Ukraine – as it has done for the past 102 years.)

In Germany, the 50+1 model is under pressure from all sides. Investors circling. Lobbyists working overtime. Clubs flirting with exceptions and loopholes. If that rule falls, it won't be long before decisions start being made with profit margins first and postcodes last.

And once you accept that your club can be a spreadsheet asset, it’s not a huge leap to see it sold, repackaged, even moved.

We’re not there yet. But the logic is creeping in. Slowly. Quietly. Like VAR.

And I worry that one day, not too far off, club representatives might look back at those American relocations not as absurdities, but as blueprints.

I asked Tim Santen, former press officer of Arminia Bielefeld, whether there’s even a hypothetical scenario in which a club like Arminia could relocate to another city by its own decision – without the club, its environment, and its fan scene completely imploding.

Tim:

“No, there’s no such scenario, because of course that would result in an implosion. But the possibility of a club like Arminia being bought and transferred to another city is, unfortunately, not out of the question. RB Leipzig shows that investors are willing to buy clubs for their league licence, and that this is possible in Germany. As a member of Arminia and former press officer, I hope we always remain vigilant. I can’t imagine Bielefeld or East Westphalia without Arminia.”

Read: It depends on who's running the club and the good will of officials. Tim then goes on to highlight some of the key factors that intrinsically link clubs to their communities.

Tim:

“Over more than 120 years, structures have developed that go far beyond football. Social work carried out by the fan project, or many training and educational programmes for young people and refugees, would not be financially viable without Arminia. Going to home matches together, cheering on the team in the pub, founding fan clubs, being part of a community – Arminia is of immense value to life in this city. It’s precisely because of these social structures and the regional ties that a sale or relocation is highly unlikely.”

Comforting, for now. But if I’ve learnt one thing in my 43 years on this planet:

Football is a simple game, twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, Capitalism always wins.

But us fans will not go down without a fight.

In the end, we can’t rely on 50+1. In the end, we, the fans, are the last line of defence against a football of the too modern persuasion.

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