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There’s something especially toxic about rivalries involving sports teams that share a state, and while fans in those opposing camps may not agree on much, they tend to be united by their belief that you need to pick a side. However, it appears Elon Musk didn’t get that particular memo.
While I can’t say I personally understand the appeal, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with rooting for multiple sports teams in the same league.
At the end of the day, you need to have one squad that reigns supreme in situations where they face off against each other, but I can’t fault people who have a backup team because they root for a particular player, relocated to another part of the country, or simply like the color scheme.
It’s a bit easier to straddle the fence when the two teams in question are in different conferences, and there are plenty of NFL fans out there who don’t have a problem throwing their support behind a team in the AFC or NFC if their primary franchise fall in the other camp.
However, there are limits when it comes to that particular form of fence-sitting.
If you spent more than a few minutes on the internet over the weekend, you probably came across a widely mocked video of Elon Musk leaping around the stage while appearing at a rally for Donald Trump in Pennsylvania.
According to Politico, that marked the start of a string of events that will see the divisive billionaire spend the next few weeks serving as a surrogate for the former president ahead of the 2024 election in the crucial swing state—one that he doesn’t appear to have any real connection to at first glance.
However, as the outlet notes, Musk did attend the University of Pennsylvania as an undergrad and is apparently a fan of two NFL teams that call The Keystone State home: the Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
imagine saying this with a straight-face https://t.co/GyCUFpPYfW pic.twitter.com/r5xAGNkRPz
— Bradford Pearson (@BradfordPearson) October 7, 2024
That last tidbit understandably caught the attention of plenty of people who had a hard time believing there is actually anyone on the planet who considers themselves a fan of both of those teams.
Eagles fans are legendary haters who devote the bulk of their enmity to the Cowboys and the Giants, but they also have plenty of disdain left in the tank for the AFC franchise located around 300 miles west of the City of Brotherly Love—a feeling that’s mutual between a Steelers fanbase that primarily views the Ravens as mortal enemies.
As plenty of people who responded to the above tweet noted, not picking a side in the Eagles-Steelers rivalry is akin to not having a preference between Sheetz and Wawa, the two Pennsylvania-based convenience stores that inspire strong feelings you can really only understand if you’ve lived there—the only thing worse than meeting someone who doesn’t agree with your choice is encountering a person who doesn’t have one.
As a result, it would appear Musk committed a major unforced error here.