Contrary to popular belief, the Yankees are only the fifth-most despised team in the majors, according to an Internet algorithm built by Nielsen Co. that analyzes how people feel about certain things. This service typically uses various keywords to find out whether people have positive, negative or neutral reactions to different brands and products. No team registered a negative mark on Nielsen's "sentiment scale," which ranges from -5 to 5, but the Yankees (1.8) were one of only six teams to score lower than 2. The Mets finished four spots higher, making them the ninth most-hated team.
"Even Yankee fans don't hate the Mets these days," says Benjamin Kabak, a writer for the River Avenue Blues Yankees blog. "We just feel bad for them." (courtesy of the Wall Street Journal)
Well there you have it, Red Sox fans. Despite your shameless bandwagon jumping over the last 6 years to create the greatest fan base of any team in any sport in the history of the world, the numbers don't lie. Nobody likes you and nobody likes your team. So pack up your green hats, tell your girlfriends to take off their pink Varitek jerseys, turn "Sweet Caroline" off on your iPod dock, and just go the fuck home.
You can bitch about the Yankees and their spending all you want, and why not? That's what everybody else does and that's surely the major source of most people's hatred for the Yankees. But at the end of the day, deep down people respect winning and people respect class. And the New York Yankees still represent the gold standard in American sports in both of those categories. Sure they get their fair share of hatred thrown their way, as their standing in this poll shows that the Bombers aren't winning any MLB popularity contests any time soon. But any real sports fan has to respect the honest tradition the Yankees have built on their own merit rather than the media-created falsehood that is Fraud Sox Nation.
I've known it forever, and I'm sure plenty other people have to. But it's nice to see it finally put out in the open. Thank you, Wall Street Journal, and thank you, Nielsen. You've done all of us true sports fans a great service with this research.
Just for shits and gigs, here's the top 10 list of the most hated teams, according to the research:
The Hatred Index
1. Cleveland Indians 0.9
2. Boston Red Sox 1.1
3. Cincinnati Reds 1.5
4 Houston Astros 1.8
5. New York Yankees 1.8
6. Washington Nationals 1.9
7. Chicago White Sox 2
8. Baltimore Orioles 2
9. New York Mets 2.3
10. Los Angeles Dodgers 2.4
P.S.- Kudos to Ben from RAB for getting the jab in on the Mets. Truer words have never been spoken.
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