Marylanders: are you going to no longer go to Caps or Wizards games once they move to Alexandria, just because it’s harder to get from PG or MoCo to NoVa than it was to Chinatown?
For sure, the answer is yes for many people who fit the bill of that question, even if, well Ted Leonsis said at the presser announcing the move that he sees his media market going from “Delaware to Richmond,” and in an appearance on the Sports Junkies, our guy Barry Svrluga posited that Ted “wants to think of this place as a supercity and get rid of the provinciality, but we are all very different; people from northern Virginia or Prince George’s Counties are proud to be from the area we call the DMV in general, but locally, people are dug in on, ‘I’m from MoCo, I’m from the District, I’m from Alexandria,’ and this story is bringing all of that hyper-local bias out.”
“Barry’s on to something: all of that could be correct. DC is a city proper, but Washington is a region, and the teams represent the District, Maryland, and Virginia…or so I thought,” Grant said during Thursday’s show. “I have been told by people over the last two days…I mean, I have a Tweet here from a guy who says the DMV is really DC, PH, and MoCo, and we do not include the V. I guess I didn’t know it was territorial to this extent.”
So if that’s the case, then right now, all four teams play in the “DMV,” but two are “leaving,” and apparently, that hyper-local pride is coming out in the most vain of ways.
Grant, who grew up in King George, Virginia, always considered the Washington teams his teams to, so this is why he’s so fascinated – and that’s why he reached out to our own Vic Ferreira, producer of Nats baseball and Hoyas basketball among other things and Maryland resident, to get his take.
Grant & Vic were texting all night Wednesday, and as it turns out, Vic was back at the shop producing while G&D were at Rudy’s in Kingstowne, Alexandria (twice as far, mileage-wise from the Potomac Yard site as Cap One Arena is) for their weekly remote, so he was able to come on to defend/explain himself.
And it turns out, Vic is on the verge of dropping his Caps and Wiz fandom?
“I am extremely serious – no bit, very angry – but I’m disappointed. It’s like when your parents say ‘I’m not mad, I’m disappointed,’ but I’m all of the above,” Vic said. “I don’t want them to be affiliated with the Washington area, I want them to be renamed. You are now Virginia’s team, pound sand.”
The reason he says that is due to something he didn’t even know he cared about until this week!
“I have no affiliation or loyalties to the state of Virginia, and I didn't even know I had this feeling until two days ago, but I have no affiliation in Virginia, don’t ever go there, so why should I care about them getting a team?” Vic asked.
When Danny said ‘it’s not like they went to St. Louis,” Vic said ‘they might as well have,’ but really, even 106.7 The Fan was once in Virginia and our signal is heard in both states and then some…and, of course, Danny HAD to bring up his “what about Virginia people who have always traveled” trope, and while Vic admits he’s always been spoiled, maybe that’s part of the issue?
“I admit that – in Maryland, I had USAir Arena in my back yard, essentially, same with FedEx Field, and even here with Chinatown,” Vic said.
“I grew up with professional sports in my life, and Virginia didn’t have that, so they latched on to the Caps and Wizards and Commanders.”
That’s when Grant asked why wouldn’t they, given those are the teams in the media market, and in asking Vic why those teams don’t also represent northern Virginia, Vic had a reason:
“Only if they're in DC, because I think DC unites Virginia and Maryland. That’s why it’s the DMV,” he said. “The D is first, not the V or the M.”
Again, the teams were in the M before the D, and Vic admits he’s fully 100 percent biased, even knowing Potomac Yard and Chinatown are the same distance from his current Maryland home. And again, the teams represented Maryland while in Maryland, and represented Maryland because the DMV unites, but there’s that local pride saying Alexandria doesn’t rep Maryland, a disdain between the states?
“I thought it was cut when I heard the stories they were flirting with Virginia, but when it was real, all this emotion came out,” Vic said. “If the team stays in the District, I’m okay with Virginians latching onto them as their team. I don’t know how I’m going to feel in a week, a month, a year, but right now, it’s gonna be a very awkward three-plus years of watching.”
We’re not sure if everyone is as bluntly biased as our man Vic, but you can take a listen for yourself to see how this all went down!
