Sports have long been about stars and personalities driving fandom, but that sentiment has seemingly accelerated in recent years. Fans root for teams still, sure, but more than ever sports are packaged in social media highlights and sound bites that accentuate the individual above all else.
Combined with skyrocketing TV deals, leading to skyrocketing salaries, professional athletes have a tremendous amount of power to dictate how and where they play.
When you put that against a backdrop of leagues that have a salary cap and a whole team full of egos to manage, things can get pretty interesting pretty fast.