Why Boston Fans Suck

Before I begin this angst-fueled rant, let me state that NOT ALL Boston fans suck. Far from it. Matt Damon’s a Red Sox fan, and he doesn’t suck. No, this article is addressed to the Boston sports fans of my generation—roughly everyone between the ages of 20 and 28, as well as the rest who “bought in” after 2001. Furthermore, to quote a Bostonian work of art…

That’s right. It really isn’t your fault that you suck, young Boston fans. You are the inevitable result that comes when a fanbase with a chip on its shoulder happens upon 16 years of on-the-field dominance. That being said…

Here we go.

Boston Teams Have Been Very Good…

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the four major sports franchises based in and around Boston, Massachusetts, have had an absurd amount of success over the last 16 years. Since 2001, the Red Sox, Patriots, Bruins, and Celtics have won 29 divisions, 11 conferences/leagues, and 9 championships. It’s criminal.

No other sports town even comes close to having had that much success in that time span. Hell, New York has only won 3 championships since 2001, and they have TWICE as many teams as Boston. Statistically speaking, in MOST YEARS since 2001, a Boston team has won it all. In that time, the four Boston-area teams have only had 11 losing seasons combined. By comparison, the Cleveland Browns have had 13 losing seasons all by themselves.

Obviously, this amount of success is unheard of. And since I was only 9 years old when the Pats beat Kurt Warner and The Greatest Show on Turf in the 2001 Super Bowl, I’ve really only ever known Boston as a city of champions.

Boston Teams Were Not Always Very Good…

But, this wasn’t always the case for Boston fans. As of 2001, The Red Sox hadn’t won a World Series since 1918, the Bruins hadn’t won a Stanley Cup since the 1970s, the Celtics hadn’t won an NBA Championship since Larry Bird’s departure in the 1980s, and the Pats hadn’t won a Super Bowl since… ever. They were perennial losers. They were underdogs. They would get so close, and then…

…yeah.

There are movies dedicated to the hopelessness of Boston fans, like the terribly underrated Jimmy Fallon/Drew Barrymore rom-com Fever Pitch (2005) fairly accurately characterizes what it was like to be one of the Boston faithful before 2004.

In the film, Barrymore’s character falls in love with Fallon’s, a man who is seemingly perfect aside from being a fanatical Red Sox fan. In 2003, the Red Sox fanbase was a pretty lovable bunch. They were fiercely loyal. Sure, they appeared to be pessimistic, but it was totally justified—they hadn’t won a world series in 85 years. And underneath their calloused depression was the baby-soft skin of hope.

The entire movie is grounded by the fact that Boston Red Sox fans in 2003 were generally great people. Their devotion to a perpetually losing team gave them a nice combination of humility and feistiness. But, had the film been made 10 years later, there’s no way Barrymore’s character would have fallen in love with Fallon in the first place. Why? Because since winning the World Series in 2004, 2007, and 2013, Red Sox fans have evolved from a pack of loveable underdogs, into a gaggle of cocky winners.

A Great Team Does Not Make a Great Sports Fan.

Gone is the young fanbase that spent their childhood listening to their fathers curse at the television. They’ve been replaced by a new fanbase that has appropriated this self-aggrandizing “the world is against us” attitude, despite only knowing success. The humble and grateful Jimmy Fallons of yesteryear, are nowhere to be found.

You see, one of the best things about being a sports fan is that it teaches you to cope with failure. And, that’s a good thing. It makes you likeable. There’s a reason why we rank fanbases by how loyal they are when the team is losing, because EVERY fanbase is loyal when the team wins. That’s why the entire nation rallied around the Chicago Cubs in this year’s World Series. It wasn’t because Kris Bryant has the eyes of an Arctic angel.

Though he does.

No. It’s because the Chicago Cubs fanbase had not seen their team win in 108 years, and was STILL selling out Wrigley.

Beantown = Bandwagontown

Bandwagon fans suck. Bandwagon fans are to sports what ticks are to pigs, what olives are to supreme pizzas, what whoever Hugh Hefner’s current wife is to Hugh Hefner. They bet the money line on the favorite. They make the game about their own satisfaction.

And bandwagon fans have flocked to Boston teams like my fat cousin Lenny flocks to the dessert table.

This is a dramatic reenactment from Matilda. That’s not actually Lenny.

By no means do ALL bandwagon fans leech onto Boston teams, though a lot do. For example, if you’re not in Northern California, and you see someone wearing a Golden State Warriors jersey, there is a 99.999 percent chance that that person is on the bandwagon. Hell, even if you ARE in Northern California, there is still a 72 percent chance that person is on the bandwagon. I mean, I seriously feel bad for anyone who was a diehard Warriors fan through the tough times, and now has to share Oracle Arena with a group of people that don’t even recognize this logo.

It’s for a brand of orange juice flavored protein btw.

And since bandwagon fans grasp their talons into successful teams, it’s easy to see why the Boston fanbase has seen such massive growth over the past 16 years.

With the Red Sox breaking their 86-year World Series drought and the Patriots winning 3 of the last 4 Super Bowls, it seemed like every other person in the world was a Boston sports fan by 2005. And in 2007, when the Boston Celtics acquired Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett to join Paul Pierce on the hardwood, Boston had officially evolved from a down-on-their-luck sports town, to a city of champions.

Boston Fans are Ungrateful

As I mentioned earlier, being a lifelong sports fan instills a pessimism into your being. If you’ve been rooting for a team for more than a decade, you quickly learn to NEVER expect your team to win the championship. That only makes the pain of not winning the championship even worse. It’s also how you end up with tattoos like this…

No, the Detroit Lions did not win the Super Bowl in 2005… or ever.

And, when your team finally does win it all, you can truly celebrate because it’s a feeling you’ve never felt before, or at least not in a very long time. It’s how you end up with tattoos like this…

For a second I thought he was white trash, but then I spotted the nipple rings. Class all the way.

In this regard, Boston sports fans between the ages of 18 and 30 are like the spoiled rich kids of the sporting community. They have learned to expect success, but not appreciate it. At least not the way every other sports fan in the world does, because… why would they? The next championship is obviously just around the corner, right?

For example, take the 1.3 million fans who lined the streets of Cleveland for the victory parade after the Cavs won the NBA Championship in 2016, their first in 52 years. In contrast, when the Patriots won their most recent Super Bowl in 2015, only 750,000 people showed up for the parade despite the fact that Boston is more than TWICE the size of Cleveland, that the NFL is MUCH more popular than the NBA, and that the Pats are MUCH more popular than the Cavs.

The Boston sports fans who have gotten this far are likely saying, “Well obviously the Cleveland parade was bigger, Jack you ignorant slut. They hadn’t won a championship in 52 years.” Well, that’s exactly my point. Cleveland fans are grateful for their championship because at this rate they won’t win another one until 2068, when LeBron James’s great-grandson defeats the Venus City Space Monkeys in a thrilling 7-game series at the Trump International Space Coliseum. Pats fans don’t need to go to their victory parade because… they’ll just catch the next one.

Boston Fans Think the World Revolves Around Them

This arrogance is what makes Boston fans so annoying. Hearing “we’re the best” over and over and over again gets really old really quickly. We know you’re good. We know Belichick is great. We know #Tommy is going to the Hall of Fame. We know Big Papi is the greatest DH of all time. Now will you shut up and let us talk about Tampa Bay Rays left-handed prospects?

Eh, they’re OK.

The Boston fanbase has become so large and loud that an entire industry has spurted out of it. Websites like Barstool Sports and The Ringer were founded on the back of Boston sports culture. You think they would have survived if they were based in Atlanta? Hell no. You think they would have gotten nearly as big had the Cardinals swept the Sox in the 2004 World Series, or if Drew Bledsoe never gotten hurt and served the full 10 years of his contract with the Pats? Hell no.

No offense, Drew.

Bandwagon fans have kept Boston at the center of the sports media’s attention for more than a decade, and the result is a generation of spoiled, lazy, fans that think the world revolves around them. Where do you think the majority of this fanbase is going to go when Belichick, Brady, and Bergeron, join Big Papi, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen in retirement? Where will they go when the sports universe rights itself and Boston becomes just another sports town that’s good one year, bad the next?

Why Boston Fans REALLY Suck

What’s worse about Boston fans is the fact that they really do believe that the world is out to get them. This week the New England Patriots will play in their 7th Super Bowl since 2001, and if I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard a Pats fan say “I can’t wait to see the look on Roger Goodell’s face when he hands the MVP trophy to Tom Brady,” well I’d have damn near 6 dollars and 35 cents.

The Pats are on the verge of winning their fifth Super Bowl in 17 seasons, they have a history of cheating, and they bring billions of dollars in revenue to the NFL. Do you really think the commissioner of that league has a secret plot to destroy them? Just how arrogant are you?

When It All Ends

It’s going to be such a great day.

It won’t happen all of a sudden. Failure doesn’t hit quite as fast as success does. But, after six or seven mediocre seasons, the reality will sink into Boston fans, and the bandwagoners will abandon ship for other teams that have found sudden, unexpected success.

The truth is, I—along with every other non-Boston fan—would kill to have this type of success. I’d love to be lazy and spoiled by my teams, to have popular websites catered to my fanbase, and to tell everyone that their team fucking sucks as I drink my fourth pitcher of Miller Genuine Draft. Having your fanbase inflated by bandwagoners is a first world problem. So is being a cocky douchebag. Appreciate it while you can Boston fans, because when the Patriots inevitably have their first losing season since 2000, you’re never going to hear the fucking end of it.