History FandomRivalry / Sports

** Toronto/Montreal

** Boston/Montreal

** Nowadays you still have the rivalry between [=McLaren=] and Ferrari fans, and those fans invoking EnemyMine to go against a third team - Red Bull, who shot up to prominence in recent seasons with the help of their (former) lead pilot, Sebastian Vettel.
** As [=McLaren=]'s racing credibility has gone down in recent years - especially after their engine supplier switch to Honda in 2015, these days it's mainly Ferrari vs. Red Bull, with Mercedes and Lotus joining in on occasion. As of 2014 Mercedes has become the strongest team in the field so it's now mostly between Ferrari and Mercedes, with Red Bull sometimes joining the fray. Ironically, though, the staffs of Ferrari and Mercedes get along quite well in real life.

* Figure skaters versus hockey players. [[AddedAlliterativeAppeal 'Tis totally true, tropers.]]

*** The Lone Star Showdown is also on hold indefinitely dume to Texas A&M leaving the Big 12 Conference to join the SEC. Both fanbases would like to bring the annual game back, but there are no concrete plans to do so at this point.
*** Or you could always [[[TakeAThirdOption support Texas Tech and the Red Raiders]], although Tech vs. U. Of Texas is the main rivalry for Red Raider fans.

** The classic: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan-Ohio_State_rivalry The University of Michigan and The Ohio State University]], quite possibly the oldest rivalry among BCS teams (the Ivy League's rivalries are older, but they're not in contention anymore). Not half as interesting as it used to be, since [[UsefulNotes/UniversityOfMichigan U-M]] has been emphasizing academics so heavily, but wearing red and gray in Ann Arbor will get you catcalls in the daytime and could get you into a scrape during the drunken nights. On the other hand, wearing maize and blue in Columbus is a capital offense.

** While we're on the topic of Midwest rivalries, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota–Wisconsin_football_rivalry Wisconsin-Minnesota]] is pretty storied. And oh yeah, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_Trophy Iowa-Wisconsin]] has been ridiculously close over the last few years. This is the link for the football (the American kind, for you Europeans) rivalry. Wisconsin leads the gridiron series 43-42-2. But it doesn't end there. It extends to basketball too. Including their most recent game, (a 79-74 Wisconsin victory) the last five match ups have been decided by 5 or less points. Whoo, that's close.
** But none of these can compare to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Bowl the Iron Bowl]], the rivalry between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Auburn Tigers. Fans of the winning team have been known to ''burn the score of the game into the lawns of neighbors who support the losing team'' to rub it in. Or worse. [[http://www.ajc.com/sports/auburn-tree-killing-the-841586.html An Alabama fan was arrested for poisoning some trees]] on the Auburn campus.

** The whole NFC East (Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, and Washington Football Team) ''despises'' each other, to the point where it's hard to pick the biggest rivalry, but it's probably Dallas and Washington. The intra-divisional rivalry is so bitter that many fans of a particular team count an otherwise dismal season a success if their favorites beat their most hated rival in both outings. It's even ''so'' bitter than when Deion Sanders, then with the Cowboys, played a minor league baseball game against Richmond (which is in Washington territory) he was booed down by the spectators every time he went to bat.[[note]]Sanders being arrested for assaulting two fans in another game against Richmond a decade earlier probably contributed to their sentiment.[[/note]]

** The sport of MMA was founded on the idea of rivalries between various martial arts styles. The UFC was originally marketed as the ultimate test to determine which style is "the best." Even as the sport of MMA has evolved and fighters now crosstrain styles, there is still a lingering rivalry between fighters with a jiu-jitsu background and those with a wrestling background.
** Fans of Pride versus fans of the UFC. During the early 2000s, Pride fans repeatedly insisted that Pride featured superior fighters, more exciting action and a better presentation. They often looked down their noses as UFC fighters, whom they considered second rate, and UFC fans, whom they considered ignorant. UFC fans often responded by accusing Pride fighters of using Steroids and criticizing the show's fondness for "freak show" matches. Things came to a head when the UFC bought Pride and shipped most of its big names into the Octagon, where they achieved mixed success. Three years after the last Pride show, internet fans are still dusting off the rivalry.
* Even UsefulNotes/HorseRacing fans get into this. The biggest split, at least in North America, is between those who think [[CoolHorse Man O' War]] was the Greatest Racehorse Ever (won 20 out of 21 starts, never finished below second place, would have won the Triple Crown if his owner had run him in the Derby, carried truly massive handicap weights) and those who think Film/{{Secretariat}} is the Greatest Racehorse Ever (Triple Crown winner, won 16 out of 21 starts, with 3 second-place finishes, one third, and one fourth, broke pretty much every standing race and track record he came across including those of all three Triple Crown races, and perhaps most famously, broke the Belmont Park all-time track record by ''two-and-a-fifths seconds'' [[note]]For non-racing fans, breaking a record by 1/5 of a second is the norm. 2/5 is a bit rarer. Two whole seconds is ''unheard'' of.[[/note]] while winning his Belmont by ''thirty. one. lengths''). The arguments can get rather heated.

*** Kyle Busch vs. Kevin Harvick vs. Joey Loganno vs. the Field

** A more recent rivalry is the rivalry between fans of the former Seattle [=SuperSonics=] and the Oklahoma City Thunder. The move from Seattle to Oklahoma City led to people in Seattle being mad every time OKC is even mentioned and has led to large conflicts where Seattle fans claim that OKC stole the team from them. It didn't help that the move was terribly executed and that the NBA commissioner promised Seattle a team and failed to deliver.

*** Creator/{{Fox}} Sports vs. Creator/{{NBC}} Sports over who handles the TV broadcasts better.

*** Creator/{{Fox}} Sports vs. Creator/NBC Sports over who handles the TV broadcasts better.

*** Hendrick vs. Roush vs. Gibbs vs. Childress vs. Stewart-Haas

*** Kyle Busch vs. Kevin Harvick
*** Hendrick vs. Roush vs. Gibbs vs. Childress
*** Chevy vs. Ford

** Virginia–Virginia Tech. Depending on who you ask, Hokie fans are inbred and uncultured hillbillies with an IQ so low they think animal husbandry is a legitimate academic discipline, and who think the only sport VT sponsors is football. By contrast, Cavaliers are wannabe [[UpperClassTwit upper-class twits]] with delusions of grandeur, [[NotSoDifferent an unhealthy obsession with basketball]] [[FairWeatherFriend now that their team's finally good again]], [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and UVA has a joke of an engineering school]]. Regardless, the rivalry's more than a little one-sided in football; [[CurbStompBattle the only game that UVA has won since 2003]] was the 2019 edition, and the Cavs haven't beaten Tech in consecutive games in the current century. In 2015, they both hired coaches whose teams, the year before, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSFbUIDYvZ4 had gotten into a post-bowl game brawl]].

** Michigan/Michigan State isn't as big a rivalry as Michigan/Ohio State, but you'd never know that as a kid growing up in the Detroit area. It's been known to split families in two on the day of the game. It's even gotten to the point where guards are posted around Sparty (a bronze Art Deco statue of a Spartan warrior that serves as the basis for Michigan State's mascot) whenever Michigan comes to play, since Michigan fans will sometimes paint a little golden M (the Michigan logo) on his bottom, and Ann Arbor (where Michigan is located) will have blue and gold street signs (everywhere else in the area has green and white street signs, but green and white are Michigan State's official colors while maize and blue Michigan's colors).
** While we're on the topic of Midwest rivalries, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota–Wisconsin_football_rivalry Wisconsin-Minnesota]] is pretty storied. And oh yeah, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_Trophy Iowa-Wisconsin]] has been ridiculously close over the last few years. This is the link for the football (The American kind, for you Europeans.) rivalry. Wisconsin leads the gridiron series 43-42-2. But it doesn't end there. It extends to basketball too. Including their most recent game,(A 79-74 Wisconsin victory) the last five match ups have been decided by 5 or less points. Whoo, that's close.

*** Also worth noting is the slogan of the Third Saturday in October (The Alabama-Tennessee rivalry), "Hate Auburn because you have to, hate Tennessee because you want to."

** In terms of longevity at least, the rivalry between Patriot League enemies Lafayette and Lehigh top all others. They've been going at it every year since ''1897'',[[labelnote:*]]If you want to nitpick, they didn't play in 2020 thanks to COVID-19, but the Patriot League moved its 2020 football season to spring 2021 and the schools did play that April.[[/labelnote]] making their big game the oldest uninterrupted college football rivalry in the United States.

** BCS. Never before have three letters brought such rage in collegiate sports. And that's just if you support a college from automatic-qualifying conference. Supporting a non-AQ (or, in today's era, Group of Five) college means those letters mean [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney something]] [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem else]] [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections entirely...]] The BCS was scrapped after the 2013 season and replaced with the College Football Playoff; the rage that the letters inspired has now been transferred to the letters CFP.

*** Ole Miss -- When "And the South shall rise again!" was banned, fans took replaced it with the old saying "And geaux to Hell, LSU!"

** Army-Navy (and to a lesser extent the heated games vs. Air Force Academy). For a brief period -- the 1940s and 1950s -- this was one of the premiere football rivalries, supported by an existing InterserviceRivalry centuries in the making. While both schools have fallen from top-tier status, their season-ending contest (nowadays scheduled as the last regular season game before the bowls kick in) remains well-watched, the rivalry more respected than hated.

** There's also Pats-Jets, although that ties in more to the general theme of Boston-NYC, and the teams happening to share the AFC East (which is a tea party with finger sandwiches in comparison to it NFC counterpart).

** And the Chicago teams -- the rivalry between the Cubs and the White Sox runs deep. Like to the point where the PD breaks out the mounted riot police when they two teams play each other each season.

** Collingwood versus everybody else is a good one. In 2010, there were the Saints supporters, the Collingwood supporters, and the ABCs - the Anyone But Collingwood's. Rinse and repeat in 2011 (Geelong, Collingwood, ABC) and 2018 (West Coast, Collingwood, ABC).

** Even the MeleeATrois mentioned above can turn rivals into FriendlyFandoms. For example, Indycar and NASCAR fans are often [[EnemyMine accidentally united whenever F1 fans]], [[SlobsVsSnobs who have the reputation of being snobs]], attack either one series, or both.

** Also currently, The original 1992 Dream Team vs. the 2012 lineup for the Olympics. Hoo boy, it doesn't help that Kobe was the one who started it.

** Brigham Young University vs the University of Utah. Take all the usual college rivalry elements as noted above, then add some religion to the mix. BYU is owned by the LDS (Mormon) Church, the U is run by the state of Utah. Many BYU fans consider the U to be a secular, sin-ridden, anti-religious school. Many U fans consider BYU to be an academically inferior, self-righteous indoctrination camp. Neither side quite knows what to make of the fact that Brigham Young founded ''both'' schools, or that the two most recent presidents of the LDS Church graduated from the U.
** In terms of longevity at least, the rivalry between Patriot League enemies Lafayette and Lehigh top all others. They've been going at it every year since ''1897'', making their big game the oldest uninterrupted college football rivalry in the United States.

** BCS. Never before have three letters brought such rage in collegiate sports. And that's just if you support a college from automatic-qualifying conference. Supporting a non-AQ college means those letters mean [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney something]] [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem else]] [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections entirely...]]

** The North Carolina-Duke rivalry is so strong that when somebody wrote a book about it, it was titled ''To Hate Like This Is To Be Happy Forever''. A lot of fans on both sides took one look at that title and went, "Yep."

** Alabama State and A&M for the SWAC division (the bands too).

*** Alabama -- "F*** Auburn" in Dixieland Delight, the song played in the middle of the second half.

** University of Georgia vs. Georgia Tech. Their fight songs even reference each other - Georgia's ends with "And to hell with Georgia Tech," while Tech's includes "To Hell with Georgia."
** University of Oregon Ducks vs. Oregon State Beavers. With the Ducks becoming a dominant force in college football since the start of TheNewTens, this has died out somewhat, but it still exists, having gone on for over a century in the state of Oregon. The game between the Ducks and the Beavers is known as "the Civil War," as it's been known to divide otherwise peaceful neighborhoods in Oregon down a ''very'' thin line.
** Also from the northwest, the University of Washington Huskies on the western side of the Cascade Mountains, and the Washington State University Cougars on the eastern side.
** Virginia–Virginia Tech. Depending on who you ask, Hokie fans are inbred and uncultured hillbillies with an IQ so low they think animal husbandry is a legitimate academic discipline, and who think the only sport VT sponsors is football. By contrast, Cavaliers are wannabe [[UpperClassTwit upper-class twits]] with delusions of grandeur, [[NotSoDifferent an unhealthy obsession with basketball]] [[FairWeatherFriend now that their team's finally good again]], [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and UVa has a joke of an engineering school]]. Regardless, the rivalry's more than a little one-sided in football; [[CurbStompBattle Tech has beaten Virginia twelve times straight (2004 through 2015)]]. In 2015, they both hired coaches whose teams, the year before, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSFbUIDYvZ4 had gotten into a post-bowl game brawl]].

** Try visiting the Oakland Coliseum as a supporter of the Chiefs, Broncos or Chargers. There WILL be blood. Raider Nation is vicious to AFC West fans, and many a fight breaks out just because of a guy having too much to drink taking offense at someone not clad in silver and black. If you do manage to avoid a fight, be prepared to sit through a long day of getting heckled and jeered at. Until the Raiders lose, anyway.

** The whole NFC East (Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, and Washington Redskins) ''despises'' each other, to the point where it's hard to pick the biggest rivalry, but it's probably Dallas and Washington. The intra-divisional rivalry is so bitter that many fans of a particular team count an otherwise dismal season a success if their favorites beat their most hated rival in both outings. It's even ''so'' bitter than when Deion Sanders, then with the Cowboys, played a minor league baseball game against Richmond (which is in Washington territory) he was booed down by the spectators every time he went to bat.[[note]]Sanders being arrested for assaulting two fans in another game against Richmond a decade earlier probably contributed to their sentiment.[[/note]]
*** Dallas-Washington may be the big one (certainly the oldest, dating back to before the Cowboys existed), but a lot more emphasis has been placed on the games against the Eagles (Who won Super Bowl 52). It's also worth noting that wearing an enemy team's jersey in the City of Brotherly Love is likely to get you stabbed. Or shot.

** The San Francisco 49ers and the Oakland Raiders, due to being very geographically close -- both representative cities are separated only by a bay and a bridge. Once again, the "Raider Nation" mentality comes into play. Games played between the two teams are referred to by some as the "Battle of the Bay Area". Whether this rivalry remains as a result of the Raiders’ move to Las Vegas has yet to be determined.

** In UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}, it's a four-way rivalry between UsefulNotes/AustralianRulesFootball, UsefulNotes/RugbyLeague, UsefulNotes/RugbyUnion and Soccer. The Aussie Rules vs Soccer aspect has recently been exacerbated by the AFL denying Soccer the use of [[strike:Docklands Stadium]] [[strike:Colonial Stadium]] [[strike:Telstra Dome]] Etihad Stadium should Australia host the World Cup.
*** Football and Rugby League have come to their senses and have somewhat 'joined forces', realising that as the current 2nd and 3rd most popular non-Cricket sports in the country (exactly where they both sit depends on where you are polling), they share similar requirements for pitch sizes, and are working together to hurt the #1 sport, AFL, as well as hopefully destroying the #4 sport, Rugby Union.
*** The Aussie Rules versus Rugby League rivalry is exacerbated by being a regional rivalry as well, with NRL being mostly Queensland and New South Wales based while the AFL is more popular in the rest of the country. Before digital multichanneling, you couldn't even watch rugby in the western half of the country without shelling out for a pay TV service. The fact that the NRL's Melbourne Storm and the AFL's Sydney Swans have both won multiple Grand Finals doesn't dent the AFL-versus-NRL rivalry being part of the broader Melbourne-versus-Sydney rivalry.

** Football in Australia has several ethnic based rivalries that plagued the National Soccer League and exist in some form today. They are the closest thing to true 'hooligan riots' to have happened in Australia.

* Even UsefulNotes/HorseRacing fans get into this. The biggest split is between those who think [[CoolHorse Man O' War]] was the Greatest Racehorse Ever (won 20 out of 21 starts, never finished below second place, would have won the Triple Crown if his owner had run him in the Derby, carried truly massive handicap weights) and those who think Film/{{Secretariat}} is the Greatest Racehorse Ever (Triple Crown winner, won 16 out of 21 starts, with 3 second-place finishes, one third, and one fourth, broke pretty much every standing race and track record he came across including those of all three Triple Crown races, and perhaps most famously, broke the Belmont Park all-time track record by ''two-and-a-fifths seconds'' [[note]]For non-racing fans, breaking a record by 1/5 of a second is the norm. 2/5 is a bit rarer. Two whole seconds is ''unheard'' of.[[/note]] while winning his Belmont by ''thirty. one. lengths''). The arguments can get rather heated.
* In UsefulNotes/AustralianRulesFootball, the AFL has its share of rivalries, with the biggest probably being the MeleeATrois between Carlton, Collingwood and Essendon fans. A famous incident occurred after Collingwood beat Essendon in the 1990 grand final, their first premiership win since 1958. When Carlton played Essendon the next year, Carlton's banner, riffing on Essendon sponsor TAC's slogan, read "If you lose to Collingwood in a Grand Final, you're a bloody idiot." (Carlton had beaten Collingwood in three grand finals between 1958 and 1990).

** Collingwood versus everybody else is a good one. Last grand final, there were the Saints supporters, the Collingwood supporters, and the ABCs - the Anyone But Collingwood's.

*** Jeff Gordon vs. Dale Earnhardt (both Sr. and Jr.)

** Within Formula 1 the bitterest rivalry is probably [=McLaren=] vs Ferrari, the two most dominating teams in the discipline's history; major bouts include 1976 (Hunt vs Lauda), 1985 (Alboreto vs Prost), 1998-2000 (Schumacher vs Hakkinen) and 2007-2008 (Alonso & Hamilton vs Raikkonen & Massa). The whole thing seems to have peaked in 2007 when the "Stepneygate" scandal led to [=McLaren=] getting booted out of the championship that year thanks to some stolen Ferrari documents, after which both parties apparently stepped back and asked themselves, "What the hell are we doing?" As Mike Doodson wrote for the grandprix.com website:

** Toronto/Everyone. It's not uncommon to see "Leafs Suck" on any hockey related topic, even if no one mentioned the Leafs

*** Though with the decline of the Orlando Magic (post-Dwight Howard) and the Cavaliers first sucking in a rebuild and then reviving with [=LeBron=], the true FandomRivalry is the Miami Heat vs Chicago Bulls. This is especially fueled by Lebron James vs. Derrick Rose debate.

** A more recent rivalry is the rivalry between fans of the former Seattle Supersonics and the Oklahoma City Thunder. The move from Seattle to Oklahoma City led to people in Seattle being mad every time OKC is even mentioned and has led to large conflicts where Seattle fans claim that OKC stole the team from them. It didn't help that the move was terribly executed and that the NBA commissioner promised Seattle a team and failed to deliver.

* Figure skating. First of all, many people will say it's not really a sport because it involves fancy costumes and music and subjective judging, and a lot of other people who point out the huge amount of athleticism required to be a figure skater, along with the sport's inclusion in the Winter Olympics. And of course within the figure skating fandom, there are huge fights over which skaters are best (often based on which countries they represent), and no matter who wins, someone is going to say that they didn't really deserve it. Also, [[BrokenBase the new judging system, the quadruple jump, and whether you love or hate ice dancing.]]
* NBA (Basketball) vs. NHL (Hockey) [[{{Archenemy}} hate each other]] like Rugby hates Soccer in other parts in the world. It gets to the point where Basketball fans in Boston would rather support the New York Rangers, than their own Bruins team, (vice versa, with Bruins fans rather support the Knicks than their Celtics).
** This is probably because of an accident of scheduling: their seasons overlap pretty much perfectly (October-June), and they often play in the same venues (a hockey rink is a bit bigger than a basketball court, but only a bit): in 10 of the 14 metropolitan areas that have both NHL and NBA teams,[[note]]The 10 cities are Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, Dallas, Denver and Los Angeles. The metro areas of Minneapolis/St. Paul, Phoenix, the San Francisco Bay Area, and South Florida all have separate venues for basketball and hockey.[[/note]] they have to share an arena. This naturally makes scheduling a pain in the arse and causes all manner of other problems, as well. The rivalry also can have some nasty racial undertones; for reasons that nobody can adequately explain, ice hockey fandom in the US (but not in Canada, as hockey is so quintessentially Canadian) is almost exclusively White--to the point where the difference between interest in hockey in any given Northern US city and any given Canadian city can be almost entirely attributed to lack of interest among non-Whites[[note]]To detail: Estimates based on the number of NHL-related Google searches originating from a given metropolitan area show that, on average, about 30-60% of people in any given Canadian metro area are regular hockey fans, while only about 15-30% of people are fans in any given metro in the traditional US hockey regions in the North. However, when you discount a Northern US metro's non-White population, the proportion of searches jumps to the 30-60% range.[[/note]]--while basketball is more racially mixed, both on the court (where players of color and especially Black players predominate) and off (where fans of color tend to be slightly more numerous than their proportions of the metropolitan area's population).

* UsefulNotes/{{Cricket}} has major international rivalries between Australia and England (UsefulNotes/TheAshes, with their storied tradition and upstart-colony-vs-snobby-mother-country narrative) and India and Pakistan (countries that have been at actual, shooting-at-each-other war within living memory, and remain regional geopolitical rivals). There is also a rivalry between fans of different formats of the game -- Test and Limited Overs cricket. Limited Overs fans view test cricket as slow and stodgy, while test fans view the limited overs game as a bash-and-crash game for those who don't have the intelligence or attention span to appreciate the skill and strategy on display in tests. Twenty20 cricket especially is often referred to as (gasp!) "baseball".
* Skiing versus snowboarding: Ski resorts, and dedicated skiers, were slower to accept snowboarding as a sport than the mainstream or the International Olympics Committee, and some ski resorts would ban snowboarders because they hate them so much. The practice of "poaching" snowboarding arose from this, where snowboarders would go to ski resorts where snowboarding is banned and snowboard there anyway as a form of protest.

* UsefulNotes/{{Tennis}}: Roger Federer fans vs. Rafael Nadal fans vs. Novak Djokovic fans on which player is superior to the other two, which player faced the weakest/strongest competition, which player is the best on any court surface, which player will end their career with the most majors won, etc, etc.

** In Wales, Cardiff City vs. Swansea City is starting to develop as a rather nasty rivalry now that the two teams are in the same division and play each other on a regular basis.
*** Except now, as Swansea has claim to being the first ''Welsh'' team to play in the ''English'' Premier League, whereas Cardiff lost its playoff semi-final to Reading (who lost to Swansea). This will probably only help to add fuel to the fire.

** The San Francisco 49ers and the Oakland Raiders, due to being very geographically close -- both representative cities are separated only by a bay and a bridge. Once again, the "Raider Nation" mentality comes into play. Games played between the two teams are referred to by some as the "Battle of the Bay Area".

*** True story: one of the biggest dancesport events in the US is Ohio Star Ball, held in Columbus every November. It includes collegeiate team competition. It almost always overlaps the UM/OSU game. Members of the Michigan ''ballroom team'' have gotten catcalled and threatened for wearing their team jackets, even in the convention center where the competition takes place!

** UCLA vs USC. They absolutely HATE each other. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y2fdYMYpEM ESPN demostrates]]The crosstown rivalry splits families at times. It doesn't help that it's in Los Angeles, the second most populated city in the United States.

** Except the Houston Astros, who were infamously caught in a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Astros_sign_stealing_scandal sign-stealing scandal]] in which various people on the Astros staff between 2016 and 2018 would illegally covertly spy on opposing teams to learn their strategies, then counter them. Perhaps not coincidentially, the Astros got their first World Series championship in 2017. Though the entire team was severely punished and the coaches responsible fired, all of this has caused a lot of anger between fans of the Astros, who feel they've suffered enough, and everybody else, who no longer trust the Astros to play fairly. Now it's reached the point where if a baseball fan isn't from Houston and dislikes the Yankees, they will still respect the Yankees for not cheating, unlike the Astros.
* Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants, anyone? People have '''died''' over it. It's the oldest rivalry in professional American sports, one that began in New York and simultaneously encompassed the cultural rivalry between Brooklyn (the Dodgers) and Manhattan (the Giants), and was transplanted to the opposite coast, where it once again encompassed the cultural rivalry between UsefulNotes/LosAngeles and UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco. There's a reason why [[http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/28/baseball-best-rivalries-lifestyle-sports-baseball_slide_11.html?thisSpeed=undefined Forbes]] and [[http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/lists/MLB-top-10-rivalries-042710#tab=photo-title=Dodgers-Giants&photo=11184034 Fox Sports]] rated it the #1 rivalry in baseball, period. The Red Sox-Yankees Rivalry is seated at #2 because no matter how much the media and the fans play it/admit it, the rivalry is too one-sided in terms of championships (Yankees have 27, Red Sox have 8. See how wide a margin that is?). The Dodgers and the Giants are just about even in their accomplishments and they have the most storied rivalry in baseball history.

** The sport of MMA was founded on the idea of rivalries between various martial arts styles. The UFC was originally marketed as the ultimate test to determine which style is "the best." Even as the sport of MMA has evolved and fighters now crosstrain styles, there is still a lingering rivarly between fighters with a jiu-jitsu background and those with a wrestling background.

** If there's a UrExample, it must be Celtic-Rangers, the Old Firm. This has been going on for all of 121 years, with the two clubs becoming symbols of the deep social and religious divides in Scotland. Also in the UK, there are several London derbies such as Arsenal-Tottenham, West Ham-Millwall, and Fulham-Chelsea; plus there's Newcastle-Sunderland, Man Utd-Man City, Derby-Leicester-Nottingham Forest, and Villa-Birmingham-West Brom-Wolves. The most potent English rivalry by far though is Manchester United vs Liverpool. The two biggest and most successful English clubs, from rival cities only 26 miles apart, yet bear similarities in the start of their success, dominating periods and even shirt colour.

*** Similarly, the Liverpool-Everton rivalry is just as passionate, and on the pitch, officially the most vicious in the League, having racked up the most red cards of any fixture. However, peculiarly, off the pitch it's relatively friendly - not quite to the levels of early 80's, when it was known as 'the Friendly Derby' - but still sufficiently friendly that it's the only derby that ''doesn't'' enforce fan segregation. This has something to do with the fact that it's less tribal than in Manchester, with fans of both sides often being from the same families. In other words, it's more like a family feud.

** The Madrid derby (Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid). Their supporters see each other as sworn enemies, and for good reason. Not helped by the fact they had some quite contentious match-ups in both La Liga and EUFA in the 2010s.

** Except the Houston Astros, who were infamously caught in a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Astros_sign_stealing_scandal sign-stealing scandal]] in which various people on the Astros staff between 2016 and 2018 would illegally covertly spy on opposing teams to gather intel, then use it to gain an advantage. Perhaps not coincidentially, the Astros got their first World Series championship in 2017. Though the entire team was severely punished and the coaches responsible fired, all of this has caused a lot of anger between fans of the Astros, who feel they've suffered enough, and everybody else, who haven't forgiven them. Now it's reached the point where if a baseball fan isn't from Houston and dislikes the Yankees, they will still respect the Yankees for not cheating, unlike the Astros.

** Germany has also its fair share of rivalries, but the most prominent of them all by far is Borussia Dortmund vs Schalke 04, a rivalry known as the Revierderby. Other important rivalries include Bayern-1860 in Munich, Borussia Monchengladbach-1. FC Koln-Bayer Leverkusen-Fortuna Dusseldorf, 1. FC Kaiserslautern-Bayern Munich, Eintracht Frankfurt-Kickers Offenbach, Hamburg SV-FC St. Pauli-Werder Bremen, 1. FC Nurnberg-Greuther Furth, and Lokomotive-Chemie in Leipzig. Everyone will gladly gang up on RB Leipzig, though.

** Chicago and St. Louis' other rivalry has heated up in recent years. The Blues and Blackhawks fans aren't really keen on one another. One of the burning points in the 40+ year rivalry was in the 1992-93 NHL playoffs. Heavily favored to win the series, Chicago wound up getting swept by the Blues in the Clarence Campbell quarterfinals.

** The whole NFC East (Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, and Washington Redskins) ''despises'' each other, to the point where it's hard to pick the biggest rivalry, but it's probably Dallas and Washington. The intra-divisional rivalry is so bitter that many fans of a particular team count an otherwise dismal season a success if their favorites beat their most hated rival in both outings. It's even ''so'' bitter than when Deion Sanders, then with the Cowboys, played a minor league baseball game against Richmond (which is in Washington territory) he was booed down by the spectators every time he went to bat.[[note]]The fact of Sanders being arrested for assaulting two fans in another game against Richmond a decade earlier probably contributed to their sentiment.[[/note]]

** The whole NFC East (Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, and Washington Redskins) ''despises'' each other, to the point where it's hard to pick the biggest rivalry, but it's probably Dallas and Washington. The intra-divisional rivalry is so bitter that many fans of a particular team count an otherwise dismal season a success if their favorites beat their most hated rival in both outings.

* College-frickin'-football (American), especially in the Midwest and South.

** In Egypt, the rivalry is between Al-Ahly vs. Zamalek. This one had class connotations--Al-Ahly (literally, "the National" Club) was founded by Egyptians, for Egyptians, while Zamalek was founded by a group of expatriates and some wealthier locals -- but this element has subsided over time. Nevertheless, games between the two -- called the "Cairo Derby" as both teams are based in the capital -- can lead to some serious rioting/crazy street-celebration, particularly since the Ultras Ahlawy (Arabic for "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultras Ultras]] of al-Ahly") group got started in 2007; their antics forced the CAF to have the game against Wydad Casablanca in the 2011 African Champions League to be played in an empty stadium.

** Ravens/Steelers can get nasty quickly. This is due to the fact that this feud is the SpiritualSuccessor to the original Cleveland Browns/Steelers rivalry (Art Modell was the founder of both the Browns and Ravens, and he moved his team and the staff to Baltimore in 1996. However, the city of Cleveland retained the Browns' history, records, championships, team colors, etc.).

** The Jaguars also have a huge rivalry with the Tennessee Titans, this is mostly due to 1999.

** The whole NFC East (Giants, Cowboys, Redskins, and Eagles) ''despises'' each other, to the point where it's hard to pick the biggest rivalry, but it's probably Dallas and Washington. The intra-divisional rivalry is so bitter that many fans of a particular team count an otherwise dismal season a success if their favorites beat their most hated rival in both outings.

** The NFC North (Bears, Lions, Packers, and Vikings) also despises each other, although it isn't ''quite'' as much of a den of venomous hatred as the NFC East. The Packers being the most consistently dominant team (the Bears and Vikings being highly variable and the Lions being...um...[[ButtMonkey the Lions]]), the antipathy between the Pack and everyone else is probably the strongest, followed by the sniping between the Bears and Lions (which is more a part of the rivalry between the two cities in everything[[note]]East Coast Americans: Detroit is the Philadelphia to Chicago's New York. Get it now?[[/note]]). That said, this ''is'' the Midwest; the rivalries don't have much of a track record of violence.

* Proving that sports rivalries are OlderThanFeudalism, the four great chariot racing clubs, the Reds, the Greens, the Blues and the Whites, each had a fervent following during the heyday of the Byzantine Empire. If you want an idea of what it was like, imagine everything about modern sports rivalries, turn the knob up to eleven, and then all the way round again. Political/religious rivalries? Chariot teams had actual political, religious and even ''military'' power. Wearing fandom colours? Wearing your team colour was the height of Byzantine fashion. Hooliganism? The Nika Riots managed to ''burn half of Constantinople to the ground''.

* All four Detroit teams (Tigers, Pistons, Red Wings, and Lions) vs. their Chicago opposite numbers (White Sox, Bulls, Blackhawks, and Bears) in the major American sports leagues (MLB, NBA, NHL, and NFL, respectively). Tigers-Sox and Lions-Bears rivalries are particularly strong, as they are within the same division in the same league (respectively the American League Central and the NFC North[[note]]Which is a hornet's nest of rivalries; the Packers, Bears, Lions, and Vikings all hate each other to one degree or other[[/note]]); one of the few things Wings fans and Blackhawks fans can agree on is that moving the Red Wings to the Eastern Conference is an abomination. Chicago fans of any of their own teams will chant "Detroit Sucks!" whenever a Detroit team plays at their home venues.

** Michigan/Michigan State isn't as big a rivalry as Michigan/Ohio State, but you'd never know that as a kid growing up in the Detroit area. It's been known to split families in two on the day of the game. It's even gotten to the point where guards are posted around Sparty (Michigan State's mascot) whenever Michigan comes to play, since Michigan fans will sometimes paint a little golden M (the Michigan logo) on his bottom, and Ann Arbor (where Michigan is located) will have blue and gold street signs (everywhere else in the area has green and white street signs, but green and white are Michigan State's official colors while maize and blue Michigan's colors).