When you walk by the Capital One arena on the night of a Wizards home game, you’re guaranteed to see guys outside selling unofficial merchandise. One of them is a 63-year-old man who introduced himself as Steve James. He’s lived in D.C. all his life.

Before Wednesday’s game, the night after Wizards owner Ted Leonsis announced a plan to move the team (along with his other team, the Washington Capitals) to the Virginia suburbs by 2028, James was next to a table of beanies, on his usual grind.

“It’s not a good move,” he said of Leonsis’s suburban dream, in between shouts of “Bullet hats! Wizards hats!”

And for him, the reason was obvious.

“The team is named the WASHINGTON Wizards. Or the WASHINGTON Caps. So it wouldn’t feel right if they moved to Virginia.”

The deal to move the teams to a yet-to-be-built stadium in Potomac Yard isn’t set in stone yet. It still has to clear some legislative hurdles in Virginia, and D.C. officials have launched a last-ditch effort to try and get the teams to stay downtown.

But for many members of an already beleaguered fanbase, the idea that Leonsis might be packing up their team and moving it across the river felt like adding insult to injury.

“I think it’s disgusting,” said David Levy, a season ticket-holder and lifelong Wizards fan who grew up in Bethesda. “Every professional team should aim to play in the city it represents…It’s a really short-sighted decision for a city that needs people to be drawn downtown.”

Levy said he’ll still support the team as a fan if they move, but he won’t be giving his ticket money to Leonsis anymore. For a team that is “already really poorly managed and rarely win[s],” he said, moving to the Virginia suburbs is just “silly.”

“I’m just simply not going to go to Virginia,” he added. “I’ve had season tickets for 10 years, and Virginia’s just not part of the deal to me.”

Other fans also said the Virginia element would limit their game attendance.

“I just won’t be coming to any more games,” said Tom Stevens, 60, who lives in Shady Side Maryland and has been a fan of the team since they were called the Bullets. Too far to travel, he said.

“It’s a D.C. team. Why would you want to move a D.C. team into Virginia?” chimed in Stevens’ brother-in-law Moses Bryant, a Bowie resident and longtime Wizards fan. “Why can’t the team just stay home?”

There were, of course, some attendees who felt positive or neutral about the move.

One northern Virginia resident, who declined to share his name publicly because of his employer, said he would be happy to see his team move — and happy to see how more development close to home might affect the value of his property. As for the loss to D.C., he said, “they should have stepped up when they had the chance.”

Another woman, who was walking too quickly for this reporter to get her name, said in passing that she honestly didn’t care at all. She and her family were just at the game to see Zion Williamson, the star of the New Orleans Pelicans. (Williamson didn’t play Wednesday night; he was out with an ankle sprain.)

Lifelong Washingtonian and Northeast D.C. resident Mike Hodges reacted to news of the potential move with a sense of resignation. To him, a billionaire seemingly moving to the suburbs in search of more profit just felt like par for the course.

“He’s made enough money. He has two franchises. So if he really wanted to stay in D.C., he could,” Hodges said. “It’ll be a loss for the people… but I think Virginia is offering a sweeter deal that will put more money back in his pocket.”

In other words, Hodges said, “it’s business. It’s not anything to take personal, but it’s unfortunate.”