I believe I read recently where Damian Lillard is on the payroll for The Portland TrailBlazers. Yes, I'm certain I've read that somewhere..... (c'mon, man..seriously?)
This isn't a novel discussion. It's pretty much an age old one among sports fans. Don't get me wrong most fans of teams say we and us but there are plenty of people with your stance that we are just fans. The question is can there be subsets of we within collective wes and the answer is unequivocably, yes. We are all people but we are not all left-handed. So I don't claim to be part of the organization just like people in the marketing department don't likely claim to be part of the roster or maybe even the team. I think most players would agree that there is a collective we that the fans of the team, the players and other team employees themselves belong to but obviously there's a we that the players belong to that we don't as fans.
How 'bout if I steal some words from Bill Schonley? Never did I ever hear The Great One say: "WE'VE got to make OUR free throws!" Or, this most famous line: "And the game is over!!! At about two minutes and eighteen seconds past the hour of two o'clock, The Portland TrailBlazers have won the World Championship! THEY are #1!"...... He did not say "WE are #1" .
We (the fans) never meant as much to the franchise as we thought. In this day and age we don't mean a rat's rump roast to anybody. Read this forum for a time and you will see that we don't even like each other.
And I'll quote the late great Freddie Mercury... "WE are the champions" He did not say THEY are the champions.
Pretty sure he said YOU’ve got to make your free throws. This is why I’m so insecure about missing free throws.