A month ago, the local Fox TV affiliate chose to show a matchup between the Dallas Cowboys and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers rather than a game featuring the home-state Tennessee Titans versus the Detroit Lions. Most Titans games are broadcast on CBS, and this was a rare Titans game Fox was carrying nationally. In Memphis, however, its airing was declined by the affiliate, Fox 13.
My Twitter feed (under the handle @gregakers) was rife that Sunday with Memphis-area Titans fans who were mad they couldn’t watch their team.
I was a little surprised because, in my mind, Memphians by and large hated the Tennessee Titans as much as I personally do, and for the same history-based reasons. I didn’t think it very controversial when I tweeted out, “Twitter blowing up with Memphians mad they can’t watch Nashville football. Where’d our self respect go?”
Here was my real surprise: The hate I got was instantaneous and widespread. I tried to play it off to responders that I was just talking NFL trash, which I was, but the Titans’ Memphis contingent wasn’t having it. People said I was a sore loser; that I should let the past go; that my dislike was sour grapes; and that I sucked and I was trash. (Many objected to me insisting on calling the team the “Nashville Titans,” some of them correcting me as if I didn’t know the team’s real name. I maintain it’s rhetorically funny trash talk.)
In light of the ardent response, I wondered for a while if I had this Tennessee Titans thing all wrong and a few hours later tweeted out my conclusion: “I’ve been pondering and now will reassert that the Titans of Nashville should not be enjoyed by the people of Memphis.” One Twitter friend said I was trolling, which is true but I was also expressing my heart-felt belief, however trollish.
I wanted to explain exactly why I hate the Tennessee Titans and why I feel all Memphians should hate them, too, but Twitter isn’t the best vehicle for making my case. So, it’s time to play 2012 Morning Quarterback and plumb the depths of my sports and civic hatred for the Tennessee Titans.