Sports Teams We Love to Hate
Rooting for a favorite team is a rite of passage, but sometimes hating on the competition can be just as fun.
Any time a team is in someone else’s home territory, things can get dicey, but these five teams seem to inspire hate no matter where they go.
New England Patriots
Anyone who roots for an NFL team that isn’t the Patriots is probably going to hate the Patriots at least a little bit. Robert Kraft has put together a team that wins so much it seems like it should be illegal. Add in some shady acts like Deflategate and the irritatingly perfect Tom Brady and even people who don’t like football can get a little irritated.
Of course, with Brady no longer a Patriot (and maybe no longer a pro player period), the Patriots might not be at the top of the hate list for long. Lucky them!
Los Angeles Lakers
Much like the Patriots, the Lakers receive lots of hate because they win and because they have one star player people enjoy tearing apart. LeBron James became a superstar when he was still just a teenager, and the fame and fortune has just built since.
But all that time in the spotlight has brought haters like a moth to a flame. The Lakers are also looked at as a “Hollywood team,” not really playing basketball for the Average Joe, and for some reason that drives people crazy.
New York Yankees
For decades, the Yankees have presided over Major League Baseball like royalty thanks to a sky-high salary cap. It’s easy to win when you have the money to buy and keep key players — at least that’s what fans of opposing teams like the Boston Red Sox like to think.
Baseball fans are basically divided into two camps: Yankees fans, and everybody else. You either love them or you hate them and everyone who plays for them. But with players’ salaries reaching a whopping $36 million (that Gerrit Cole is making some major cash!), it seems like the Yankees have plenty of ways to get over the animosity.
USC Football
Another LA team, another heap of hate. Coincidence? Probably not. USC Football has a long history of stacking up wins, but the Trojans have also churned out quite a few pro players that turned out to be… well… distasteful?
The average football fan can happily spend hours ragging on O.J. Simpson (fair enough), Reggie Bush, and Matt Leinart, but it’s also the image of the average spoiled rich kid attending USC that gets sports fans riled up.
Boston Red Sox
Once upon a time, the Red Sox were a struggling ball team that wanted nothing more than to beat their closest rivals, the Yankees. They finally did, but along the way they became the very team they hated. Jaw-dropping salaries, egos galore, rabid fans — it’s no wonder the rest of the MLB thinks the Yankees and Red Sox are basically one and the same.