The most hated teams in sports

The Astros have arguably soared to the top of the list of most hated teams in all of sports. A cheating scandal will do that to you. Houston was found to have been using a sign-stealing system involving a garbage can and cameras, and it was determined that the Astros did this in 2017, a year when they won the World Series. Now, basically everybody outside Houston hates the Astros, and the bean balls are already racking up.

They are called the “Evil Empire” for a reason. George Steinbrenner may be gone, but Yankee animosity remains strong. The prevailing wisdom of a bygone era is that the Yankees bought championships. They outspent everybody, which was considered a sin by many baseball fans. Your favorite player from your team suddenly wearing pinstripes with a big new contract? Time to boo the Yankees!

The Red Sox are despised for both having a ton of money and not wanting to spend it. They just traded their best player, Mookie Betts, to the Dodgers basically to save money. That’s annoying to many sports fans. Oh, and they are dealing with a cheating scandal of their own.

Sure, some people will blame it on the Patriots cheating. They’ll bring up Deflategate. However, if we're being honest, we know the primary reason people hate the Patriots: They keep winning. Bill Belichick and Tom Brady have more rings than they can fit on one hand. When they were winning, it meant your team wasn’t. Dynasties always drive hate.

The Cowboys used to be a dynasty, which started the discontent. What really keeps the Cowboys hated is the continued playing up of that dynasty, even though it was decades ago at this point. Still, Jerry Jones is out there pumping up his franchise, and the franchise still calls itself “America’s Team.” Most of America didn’t sign off on that.

Washington has an aggravating owner in Daniel Snyder. That’s bad. However, there is one primary reason Washington is here, and it’s because of something we have avoided mentioning, which is its team name. Washington has a racist nickname, and until that finally stops (which probably won’t be as long as Snyder is the owner) it will be hated.

Either you are born a Lakers fan, or you hate them. Or you’re a bandwagon fan. Even when the Lakers weren’t that good, it felt wrong to just start rooting for L.A. The Lakers have so much history of success, but unlike the Celtics they seem brash about it. A lot of people are also down on LeBron James, and now Anthony Davis, so both of those guys bring the contempt as well.

No team is more polarizing than the Rockets. Some basketball fans just loathe their style of play. James Harden scores 35 points a game, but so many fans hate him, claiming all he does is get fouled and go to the line. The Rockets don’t care, of course. They just do their thing. That just makes them more loathed.

Of all the teams on this list, the Knicks probably get the most hate from their own fan base. The Knicks are a storied franchise, but they’ve been bad for years, so much so that even Knicks haters are starting to get tired of it. Whether you root for New York or not, basically every NBA fan despises owner James Dolan. The Knicks will be on this list as long as Dolan is the owner.

There’s not a lot of hate in hockey right now, but there is some for the Penguins. This is bred from success. Pittsburgh won a couple of Stanley Cups in a row not that long ago in addition to another Cup won during the Sidney Crosby era. That’s part of the hate as well. Crosby, probably the best player of his era, got dropped in Pittsburgh’s lap in a draft lottery, and that rubs some people the wrong way.

This is for the folks in the Great White North. In Canada, the Leafs are basically the Yankees, only without the track record of success. If you are a Canadian hockey fan outside of Toronto, you have two rooting interests. You root for your team, and you root against the Maple Leafs.

Not all that long ago, Man City weren’t hated. They were barely thought of at all. Then they were bought by the royal family of Abu Dhabi with oil money. Suddenly, Manchester City was one of the richest teams in the world and have had a ton of success, especially in England. This whole nouveau riche thing has rubbed many the wrong way. They’ve also recently been banned from the Champions League for financial malfeasance.

Speaking of nouveau riche, the Qatari government bought PSG, then an afterthought in French soccer despite playing in Paris, in 2011. Since then they’ve dominated the French domestic league. They are a big fish in a small pond, and they have spent a large fortune to try and compete in Europe as well. As such, it’s not just French soccer fans outside Paris who are down on PSG.

Real Madrid and Barcelona both spend a ton of money, and while most people kind of like Barcelona, or at least don’t mind them, many are often down on Real Madrid. Maybe it’s because of their penchant to go after the biggest names in soccer with massive offers, making them seem more like headhunters, while Barcelona brings in a lot of stars through their own program. Plus, for many years their star was Cristiano Ronaldo, not exactly a likeable guy. On top of that, from a historical perspective, Real Madrid was the team favored by former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, and he was willing to throw his weight around in their favor.

Year in and year out, Bama is one of the best teams in college football. It gets boring after a while. Nick Saban stands on the sideline with his humorless sour face and collects trophies. The Tide outspend teams. They hire former head coaches as consultants and analysts with their vast resources. If you aren’t yelling “Roll Tide” every five seconds, you probably hate Alabama.

Clemson, like Alabama, has the constantly winning thing going against it. However, the Tigers are arguably even more detestable because somehow Dabo Swinney is more unlikeable than Saban. He’s a guy who loves to talk, including about how college football players should never be paid. Dabo is a multimillionaire who says he would quit coaching if players ever started getting paid. He also  brings an overtly religious philosophy to his football team, which is problematic at a public university. Unlike Alabama, though, there is a cult-like atmosphere at Clemson.

Notre Dame, and its fans, seems to hold itself up as a step above the rest of college football. This is despite the fact it’s not the 1930s anymore, and Knute Rockne isn’t walking through that door. Notre Dame is still an independent team, refusing to join a conference, and basically has its own network in NBC. The Irish isolate themselves from the rest of college football, and it does tend to wear thin.

No team is college hoops is loathed more than Duke. You can just envision Greg Paulyus slapping the floor on defense right now. You’re remembering Grayson Allen trying to trip a player. You’re hearing the Cameron Crazies yelling awful things at opposing teams and generally acting obnoxious, even by the standards of college students. Through it all, Coach K looms on the sideline, the forever face of a successful, but annoying, squad.

Kentucky is another blue blood, and not just because it wears blue. A lot of people also just can’t stand John Calipari. Wherever he has coached, scandal has followed. He openly recruits one-and-done guys with the intent of just churning them out into the NBA. Many people are fine with this craven approach. Others, though, feel it hurts the sanctity of college hoops. Those people definitely hate Kentucky.

Talk about winning breeding contempt. The UConn Huskies are so dominant in the world of women’s college basketball that it’s exasperating for fans of basically every other team. The number of titles they have won under Geno Auriemma is staggering. And he's a guy a lot of people find totally unlikeable. The players come and go, but Geno is always there.