Top Ten Worst Sports Fans

POSTED BY Kenneth England, 27 August 2007

10.) Cincinnati Bengals fans: Tigers can't change their stripes, and Cincinnati Bengals fans can't change how fickle they are. During the lean years of futility in the franchise history, in which the team posted 14 consecutive losing seasons, seeing a Bengals jersey on the street happened about as many times as Pete Rose turns down a bet ... very rarely. Now that Marvin Lewis has brought the Bengals back to the elite levels of the NFL, the city is awash in a hyperactive frenzy of orange and black in one of the most sickeningly rampant cases of bandwagon jumping ever seen in professional sports. For that, Bengals fans find themselves at No. 10.

9.) Cleveland Browns fans: And now, for something completely different. Browns fans are the opposite of Bengals fans. Loyal to a fault, Browns fans suffer through year upon year of futility and an existence where the Super Bowl is Kryptonite -- withering and crippling the team whenever they get close to it. Despite all the losses, Browns fans still pack the stadium year after year and rabidly support their team with a passion seen in few other NFL cities. Sounds commendable, right? Well, it was, until things started to take weird and dark turns over the past couple of years. Reportedly, last year when Center LeCharles Bentley went down with a season-ending knee injury, seven fans had to be talked off of a local bridge in a three-hour time span. Add incidents like that to years of battery-packed snowballs hurled at opposing players (and referees) and other strange and inexplicable behavior from the Dawg Pound, and Browns fans land themselves at No. 9. In the interest of full disclosure, I am a die-hard Browns fan myself, so don't go thinking I spared my favorite teams from this list.

8.) Chicago Cubs fans: Another favorite team of mine, but Bartman alone is enough to put Cubs fans on this list. No other group of fans can lay claim to directly ruining an imminent championship victory. Of course, even that pales in comparison to the perplexing story of the infamous goat fan ... what other team can boast fans in its history that thought it would be a fun idea to bring livestock to a sporting event? Then to take the absurdity even further, to put a curse on the team that has lasted 62 years and counting. Fan history of the Cubs also has a dark element with the shooting of Billy Jurge in 1932 by a female fan, yes, inspiring the scene in "The Natural." But again, Bartman alone could have put the Cubs at No. 8.

7.) Oakland Raiders fans: There's nothing worse than someone who acts tough when they are as soft as a marshmallow. Despite the thug biker, hard-as-nails, psychotic look that Black Hole members have, their team on the field is a big giant teddy bear. With a domineering owner who seems intent on running his beloved franchise into the ground, Raiders Nation looks doomed to an endless downward spiral ... destined to become what the Bucs were in the '80s and what the Bengals were in the '90s. Acting tough and loud as a fan when your team is dominant ... or at least competent ... is one thing, but to do so when your team stinks is a laughable exercise in humiliation. For that, Raiders fans find a home at No. 7.

6.) Boston Red Sox fans: Despite the futility of the Cubs organization, Cubs fans, for the most part, had a sympathy factor that made it hard not to feel for them. Red Sox fans on the other hand were very loud, brash and obnoxious about the futility of their franchise. Then things actually got worse when Boston pulled out the miracle in 2004; when Boston fans suddenly became loud, cocky and self-assured. Worse yet, the business model of the franchise became very similar to the hated Yankees model (I guess it's true ... people do become what they hate.) Boston fans decried and bemoaned the "Evil Empire" for generations, then went and became the other "Evil Empire." An empire that now sits at No. 6.

5.) Duke fans: One of the most hated group of fans, outside their home turf, of any sports team out there. Hatred of Duke sports runs so hot it even got the lacrosse players in trouble, for a moment. But what is it about Duke fans that makes them so irritating? The ridiculously annoying Cameron Crazies are a good start. Is there anything more annoying than watching a Duke game and having to sit through hours of incessant jumping and droning? Factor in the over-confident, sometimes snobby, always entitled attitude of Duke fans in general and it's clear why Duke is at No. 5.

4.) New York Yankees fans: Speaking of entitled, let's talk about Yankees fans. Yes, we understand that you have the most storied and decorated team in North American sports history; you don't have to keep rubbing it in our faces. Getting a Yankees fan to shut up about their team is like stopping a train with your bare hands. However, all this pales in comparison to the insidious, destructive nature of fandom in New York. No matter how good their organization as a whole is, New York fans will turn on a player in seconds. Sports media and fans in New York exhibit so much hostility and anger toward the team they profess to love that it defies human comprehension. Yankees fans can simmer in their simultaneous cockiness and misery at No. 4.

3.) Philadelphia Eagles fans: The only place where simultaneous love-hate for a professional team runs stronger and more volatile than in New York is Philadelphia. Listening to sports talk radio in Philadelphia is like watching an angry mob torching the stadium. Perhaps being starved of any professional championship in the city for the past 24 years has driven them over the edge. Of course, the incident of fans throwing snowballs and booing on Santa Claus deserves mention here, also, as does the court that was built into Veterans Stadium to process violent and unruly fans on the spot. When your stadium needs a judge, that's a bad sign. This puts Eagles fans squarely at No. 3.

2.) Florida Marlins fans: Yes, both of you. By far the smallest group of fans on the list, it is, in fact, their lack of size and enthusiasm that put them on this list. As much as fans who abandon their teams when times are bad deserve to be on this list, Marlins fans deserve to be on this list, because they can't even show up when their team is good. Oh, sure, they might show up at a World Series game every five years, but the rest of the time, they apparently don't know the team exists.

Watching a regular-season Marlins home game is the most depressing thing in the sports universe. A giant, blinding, orange stadium that reportedly has 3,000 fans in it, but looks more like 200. Montreal was a better home for baseball than Miami is. To say that Marlins fans don't deserve the franchise they have gotten is the biggest understatement of the year. What a bitter irony that the Marlins won the 2003 World Series for fans who couldn't have cared less when die-hard, long-suffering Cubs fans would have given their first born for a chance at the championship. For sleeping on a team that wins a championship 20 percent of the time, Marlins fans deserve to be No. 2.

1.) England Soccer fans: Nothing in America comes close to the depths of hell that is soccer fandom in the rest of the world, particularly England. American fans can't even comprehend going to a game and watching 39 people get killed (or getting killed themselves) as happened in 1985 when English fans rioted at a match in Brussels. Surely, the worst incident, but hardly the only one in a long line of bloody soccer riots that have plagued English fandom history. Add to that the insidious element of skinhead racism in hooliganism culture, and you have a truly detestable element of sports fandom. Speaking as someone who has been in Dublin during an England vs. Ireland match, things can get very ugly and violent very fast on the street, long after the match is over. I've seen it firsthand. This is all certainly not indicative of all English soccer fans, but the violent element of its fan base puts a stain on the culture that lands it indisputably at No. 1.