Its very easy for us to say this given the huge amount of Premier League Clubs in the North West though. I think its difficult for us to envisage not supporting our local team, because we're essentially spolied by the quality of the teams in our region.
We've got City, the Rags, Liverpool, Everton, Blackburn, Bolton, Wigan, Blackpool and Stoke in the North West in the Premier League alone, and like it or not, most of the coverage on TV, in the Papers, on the Internet, Radio, etc is all about the Premier League.
Even when we were shit in the late 90s, we still got more coverage than most in the 2nd & 3rd tier at the time because of our name.
I moved down to Bristol 4 years ago, and there is absolutely fook all as far as top level football goes down here - Bristol City are in the Championship, then Bristol Rovers are in League 1, with Yeovil, Plymouth Argyle and Exeter.
The people down here watch the same Telly as us, listen to the same Radio and read the same Papers - they're bound to take an interest in what they're exposed to, so they invariably end up picking a Premier League team arbitrarily.
I'm not for a second saying that makes them the same as local fans who are born into it and brought up living it every day (and to be fair to them, most of them recognise this fact), but I can understand why they support a team that may be in a completely different part of the country to where they live. They hear about it all day, and want to be involved.