Best Sports Fans: Houston Texans
The best sports fans aren’t the ones hopelessly devoted to their favorite franchises. Hordes of cheering zombies are sometimes a bad sign that one’s team has moved from the athletic field to the competitive graveyard. Houston Texans fans may have shocked some life into the city’s pro football team by staying away in droves.
Last year, following many bad personnel decisions, woeful season finishes and a headline-grabbing scandal involving its one-time star quarterback, many longtime Texans season ticket holders declined to renew. Members of the football families which grew inside NRG Stadium over 20 years were suddenly gone and fans whose names had been inked onto the team’s season ticket waiting list year after year were suddenly eligible for tickets due to the exodus.
Thomas Edison said “discontent is the first necessity of progress” so maybe those Texans fans who spoke with their wallets are helping invent a winning team for the future. There are encouraging signs, with the team’s General Manager Nick Caserio making many vaunted player moves and Lovie Smith, the Texans’ new, respected and experienced head coach in place. It may be difficult to determine how much the team’s future success might be attributed to the fans who fought against the notion that their loyalty was just a money grab for the franchise, but there’s no question that empty seats are a bad look for a pro sports team, a look that makes a franchise try harder. It may have been painful for Texans fans to show some tough love, but it was love all the same and could result in something special for Houston sports fans in the long run.
Houston Texans Fans
NRG Stadium
NRG Pkwy, Houston
832-667-2002
houstontexans.com
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2022.
