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Ooh, another Southern/Northern difference I just thought of-collegiate sports versus professional sports. In the North, pro sports are the only sports as far as most people are concerned. I'm a die-hard Red Sox fan, but I could not care less what the local collegiate baseball team does or doesn't do, and I don't particularly care about Clemson's team either. Southerners are all about the college sports, even if they never went to that college-there were oodles of drunken fans at away football games who liked to harass the band that probably had never set foot on campus when it wasn't a Saturday.
This applies to high school sports too-I went to one football game in high school even though I love football, because in addition to our 0-32 losing streak that spanned three seasons it just wasn't important whether we won or lost on Friday when the Patriots were going to play that Sunday. I saw a Georgia high school playoff game being televised in a restaurant when I went out to dinner with my boyfriend and his family, and I was astounded that anyone would care enough to watch it. I'm sure it helps when your school team is mildly competitive at the least, but I have a feeling that a team with the same skill level (or lack thereof) down South wouldn't have gotten laughed at and booed at the homecoming pep rally every year.
I suspect several factors play into this one-a greater population density and number of big cities in the North that beget more professional sports franchises, colder weather that prevents teams from practicing as much or fans from attending as many games, culture differences that place more of an emphasis on sports being a ticket out of a small town, etc.-but I can only speculate.
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