Which sport has the worst fans?

No, soccer fans really do give a shit if you don't like it. They make it their mission to attack your intelligence because you don't have the intellectual capacity to appreciate such a creative and beautiful sport.

They seem to want to always forget the hooliganism and racism associated with the sport on a worldwide basis (except in the U.S., because we obviously don't care enough about it to have soccer hooligans), to say nothing of riots, stampedes, stadium collapses, etc., plus the occasional goalie or referee whacked outside a bar.

 

Nope. Really don't care if you enjoy it at all. I've been hearing this rant for 40 years, mostly from sportswriters who get offended that any sport other than football and golf exist.

Attacks on your intelligence may be a separate issue.

 

In every town in Massachusetts, the top row of the stands of the high school football stadium holds two or three old guys who graduated oh, around 1952 and who haven't missed a game since. They are an invaluable resource for a columnist parachuted into a high school game. So I guess you age of the creepiness factor.

 

pc,

What do you consider the difference between ultra and regular fans? I am really curious. I do notice a generation gap in the age of angry soccer fans. I feel like it is my gen x soccer fan friends who get most angry that others don’t like the support and go out of their way to make all sport conversations about soccer. I wonder if that is because they grew reading and hearing how “lame” soccer is and got a chip on their shoulders?

My millennial friends don’t seem to be offended as much. Now, they are also the ones who will bring road flares to a Saturday rec league game...

 

I call that my job security.

 

The "Ultras" are the dipshits in Europe with the flares and the chants and the brawls in the visiting cities. Think hooligans, but not by definition violent.

The culture is creeping into MLS with dopes who desperately want to emulate that. It's a little like the Black Hole in Oakland or the Dawg Pound in Cleveland.

In terms of the generational split, not sure. I can tell you I'm a Gen X soccer fan and have never heard any of the supposed pleading for everyone to love soccer.

 

Don't really get that, but there's places like Odessa where hs is pretty much pro sports to the locals.

 

Pc,


Thanks for the clarification. I do appreciate it. Also, I wouldn’t call it pleading. It’s more anger and condemnation for not liking soccer and/or liking other sports. For example, I am seeing numerous posts this week here in the Deep South from soccer friends who are angry that college football is starting. It’s stuff like, “that’s not real football,” or “college football is nothing in terms of global ranking in terms of soccer.”

It also crops up in big events such as the super bowl where I can guarantee at least one of my soccer fan friends will ride a high horse and say the super bowl doesn’t compare to the World Cup.

I really don’t think I have ever seen any of my hockey fan/football/nascar/whatever other sports fans do that. Ok, hockey and nba folks will chirp at each other a little in the spring over whose playoffs are not exciting, but not in the way that I see soccer fans do it.

 

College, because they’ll happily forgive any transgression by anyone involved with the program so long as the program keeps winning.

 

Agree. Also don't see too much face painting and clowns dressing like they are part of the team or a spirit squad at Giants and Jets games.
Guys will wear jerseys and hats, but you really don't see grown men dressed like it's Halloween. Maybe if I grew up near an NFL team where
more people did that, I'd dislike the NFL more. Did a search of Giants fans and there's only a couple pics of face paint or guys wearing faux
helmets and other gear. The one or two games I go to, I'll tailgate with buddies who have season tix and we usually laugh at the face paint guys.

No offense to Jets fans (have relatives and buddies who are fans and they know it) but more of the dregs of society are at Jets games. It has
declined a bit since they tried to get everyone to buy a PSL.

 

I had former readers come up to me five years after I stopped being a sports editor who wanted to keep talking high school football, as if I'd kept up or that I cared. I'd usually just give them some anodyne statement like, "(Traditional power running the Wing-T for the last 30 years) should be really tough this year. They have a great stable of running backs and a big offensive line." I had no idea if either of those were true.

Even creepier are grown-ass childless men who are big high school girls sports fans. I felt like Chris Hansen should've been stationed at the games sometimes.