That's right, they do not deserve loyalty. All of these things hijack our loyalty to people in the name of some higher-order goal. Sports team and TV show loyalty is there to get us to consume more. Loyalty to a country gets us to be reliable cogs in someone else's grand project. Loyalty to a philosophy gets us to be a cult leader's acolyte.

Skip the substitute and go for the real thing: loyalty to people. You can still join grand projects, but do it consciously rather than on instinct.