I have never shied away from my outright love for the City of Detroit and how every sports team in the US that I follow (bar Kennesaw State) is based in either Detroit or Ann Arbor, which is a 40-45 minute drive away from Detroit. I’ve spent the last decade or so of my life dedicating late nights and early mornings to the Lions, Pistons, Tigers and Red Wings.

While the City of Detroit has seen success over the years, that success has been sporadic at best. Both the Pistons and Red Wings won Championships in the 2000s, but outside of that (other than the Lions for the last 2 years), it’s been miserable viewing for anyone who dares fall-in-love with the sports teams of the Motor City.

Those of us across the pond are always met with the same question, “why did you choose the [insert your NFL/NBA/NHL/MLB]?” and when you are the fan of a team that’s seen very little success over the tenure of your fandom or even for longer than that, the question is met with even more inquisitiveness.

The primary reason for writing this article was to cover why I fell in love with the Detroit Pistons, and while I will try to focus a little more on them, the story goes deeper and further than watching the Pistons. It’s about falling in love with Detroit, and the rest of the teams just kind of following suit.

Hip-Hop is my favourite genre of music and the 90s is by far my favourite era of Hip Hop, but I only got into it in my very early teens (around 07/08). My parents didn’t listen to rap music very often unless it just so happened to come on the radio and my Dad despised most of the genre, while my mum was apathetic towards it but would never put it on of her own accord. It wasn’t until I got into High School and made friends who listened to rappers that I actually got into it. Now, let’s address the elephant in the room - I’m white, most of my friends at that time were white - I knew who 50 Cent was, Jay Z and various others but it was Eminem that we were all bumping at the time. Eminem quite quickly became my favourite artist and thus, the first connection to Detroit was born.

Fast forward a few years later and I started doing my Foundation Degree. One lad in our cohort was a huge NFL fan and nobody wanted to talk to him about it. So, I went home one night and decided to give it a go, to see if I could at least be an outlet for him to talk about the sport he loves and nobody else cares about. I liked it, and decided to keep going with it. He was a Broncos fan and I asked him how to choose a team, he just said “choose who you want”. When watching, I felt myself drawn to the Lions because they were 1, from Detroit and 2, played in a nice blue. Quickly, I was drawn into the Megatron and Stafford connection, but it wasn’t until I did my research that I felt a connection to Detroit. It felt like my home, Manchester. A blue-collar city that was often downtrodden and had a bad reputation. Connection 2.

I decided to give myself the rest of the season to truly decide, I was open to a couple of other franchises at the time. That was until I was fortunate enough to be an assistant sound tech at a gig for one of the nicest groups of people I've ever met. I won’t delve into the entire story, but Amp Fiddler and his band took all the time in the world to talk to me, offer me advice and generally be just incredibly supportive. That left a mark until I went home and researched him and his band at the time - only to find out that they were all from Detroit. This is connection 3, and the final nail in the coffin for supporting the Detroit Lions. It was some football, but the majority of falling in love with Detroit and its people.

Naturally, after working my way into the Lions’ social media - I connected with more Detroiters, and was made to feel so incredibly at home. Of course they asked why and even on occasion tried to encourage me to switch allegiances but that was it. Soon after that, all the others just fell into place.

The Pistons were the first to follow and upon researching, I just thought that the Pistons were fun. Tough, hard-nose, blue-collar, punch-you-in-the-mouth basketball (see The Bad Boys of the late 80s/early 90s). Their toe-to-toe battles with MJ, to Malice at the Palace and that team of the early 2000s, it was an attractive brand of basketball for me to follow. I naturally found it easy to slot right in. Much like the Lions, the Pistons were NOT very successful at the time and of course, was met with questions and even again, some people trying to encourage allegiance switches.

To cut a long story short, or to TL/DR it for some of you folks; I didn’t just choose the Lions, or the Pistons, or even the Tigers and Red Wings, I truly believe that over a short period of time - the City of Detroit chose me. It was the people of Detroit, the history of the city, and all of those connections that not just created a fandom of a couple of sports teams but truly built a lifelong passion for a place that’s 3000 miles away. I’m invested in the growth of the city, the people, the sights, the history and so much more. Funny, for someone who’s never been across the Atlantic, nevermind to the state of Michigan.

So, when people ask me: why Detroit? My response is simply: there was nowhere else worth considering.

A huge thank you to Ballers Meg for allowing me to write this article for you and I truly hope that you enjoyed learning about my story. Even if you don’t love Detroit, I hope you can at least connect to the story in some way. One of just falling in love with a place and its people.

If you want to connect with me further, then please reach out to me on social media. I’m on all of the main ones with the same handle every time: @LionsGuyFletch.