JerseySounder's Most Hated Sports Town

Prior to the Sounders playoff game against the Gals (which I will not be covering for JS because I did not watch a single minute of it), Sigi Schmid uttered the famous phrase that Boston made famous in the 80's - Beat LA! The phrase has certainly made a resurgence thanks to the Suns and Celtics battles against the Lakers in the past few years. I have also now heard it at 'fringe' sporting events like MLS and WNBA. So it got me thinking...do people really hate LA sports or are people simply too lazy to think of something else to say? To shed some light on the mystery, I emailed 30 of my closest friends to see what Sports Town they hated the most.

Before reveling the results, let me break down the voters: I received 17 ballots of which we had 7 Bucknellians, 3 Seattlites, 3 high school friends, 2 Califorians and Irishman and myself. Here are the votes followed by select commentary

1. Philadelphia - 6
2. New York - 4
3. Dallas - 2
4. Boston, LA, South Bend, Portland, Denver - 1

Thanks to all of you who voted for Philly. It means I can continue ripping on the city without angering the majority of my readers. Anyways, before we get to their comments, a quick blurb about how I feel. I consider myself a NY fan even though my two most hated teams are the Rangers and Yanks. I love NJ's only two teams, the Devils and Nets, whose natural rivals are NY teams. But I also love the Mets, another NY team, and would rather have the Giants or Jets win their divisions than any other team. I sort of look at NY as my older brother - I want to beat them at every opportunity but I will stand up for them against other cities like Philly, Boston, and Pittsburgh.

So here is what others had to say...

The Crappy One: "of course there is hatred for the yankees and rangers. but on the flipside, I have enough friends who like the mets that I'll support them in spirit (that means no homophobic slurs). plus, yankees fans hate the mets. the enemy of my enemy is my friend....the thing that actually changed my mind on it were the giants and jets... the fact that they play in new jersey but refuse to take the name pisses me off to no end. ny jets my sack. they play in effing east rutherford. NJ. not new york. same for the giants. and the fact that they call the new stadium "NEW MEADOWLANDS" is retarded, so they lose points for that, too. seriously, get the fuck out of my state if you can't bother calling yourself the new jersey giants."

D-Lib: "Philly - I've never understood why classlessness is something to be proud of."

E-Huge: "I would root for the Taliban if they played Notre Dame."

Buns: "The icing on the cake though is really the fans in Philly. I'm not sure if it's the general underperformance of their teams in the last 25 years or their inferiority complex with New York, but it's really easy not to like them. I've been to Philly several times in my life (all for business, never for pleasure obviously), and I can sort of see why there would be an inherent bitterness in the people. The place is a shithole that tries to market itself as lovable and as an underdog. So when the teams lose, the fans have nothing else to turn to. If the Miami Heat are getting blown out in a game, the fans are actually happy because that means they can leave the game early and hit up the beach. In Philly? Not so much."

J-Will: "This is Seattle. We don't hate anybody...Personally, since I lived on Colorado, I hate all teams from there."

The Wife: "Hatred is a strong word. I guess since my favorite team to support is the Sounders, I would say I would like to see Portland lose the most"

Duchene: "Oooo, that’s a toughy. There are three contenders. New York fans are definitely in the discussion. As everyone knows, they think that the universe revolves around them and that nothing exists outside of their world. I’m pretty sure they think the World Series was cancelled this year because the Yankees aren’t playing...Philly fans are almost exclusively loudmouths...I could go through the usual litany of why they are so obnoxious (vomiting on children, etc.), but those are all well known. But the winners, in an extremely tight race, are Boston fans. 10 years ago they were insufferable whiners like Cubs fans, but with the sudden run of success they’ve managed to maintain that whining edge while adding a layer of condescension. It really is an amazing combination. Add to the fact that all the people who can still afford to go to games in Boston’s are there because daddy or granddaddy did all the work and then passed along the cash and you have a truly unbearable fan base."


Major thanks to all those who contributed. I look forward to more email polls like this in the future.