Top 10 Sports Teams with the Drunkest Fans
Thurs. Mar. 18, 2021Fans are competitive by proxy when it comes to their teams, but sometimes that sense of rivalry can help fuel drunken antics. In fact, for many, it's the social drinking part of seeing a match live (whether home or away) that has the largest appeal. But like anything that is fun, it can often be taken to excess. In no particular order, here are 10 teams with the drunkest fans.
Manchester United
- In the 1999 UCL Final, Man U. stole the win in stoppage time with a dramatic blitzkrieg against Bayern M.
- So far, Manchester United has won 20 domestic league titles, which is more than any other English team.
- The crest from the Manchester United logo was introduced on their jersey for the first time in the 1971 season.
- According to 2020 statistics, Manchester U. has a network of more than 75 million supporters worldwide.
If there's one team on the list whose glorious victories and sudden fall from those heady heights give fans a cause to drink then it's Manchester United - there is a reason you can even bet on them at international casinos. From utterly dominating the EPL under Sir Alex Ferguson's golden years to a decline into the midfield, things are finally looking up for the team, and, at the time of writing, they're second to arch-rivals Manchester City (albeit 15 points behind with one match fewer played).
At 31 units of alcohol consumed, on average, per week, they're among the biggest drinkers in the Premiership. Eventually, downing that many beers can take a toll, as happened during Sir Alex Ferguson's reign when one fan drunkenly called 999 demanding to speak to the Manchester United boss following a defeat to Sunderland.
That's a silly story but a rather worse incident happened in 2015 when a pair of drunken Manchester United fans were arrested for racially abusing fellow train passengers. This followed the team's victory over Club Brugge, and goes to show that the oafishness of fans matters more than the results of a club when it comes to behavior.
Philadelphia Eagles
- Philly played the first televised NFL game in October, 1939, losing against the Brooklyn Football Dodgers.
- Some Eagles diehard fans attended the 1948 NFL Championship for free, if they helped shovel the snow.
- The Philadelphia Eagles is the only team with a left-facing logo in the whole National Football League.
- In 1943, the Eagles merged Roosters with the Pittsburgh Steelers due to player depletion from WW2.
The Eagles' fans scored highly on the blood alcohol content measure, at an impressive/appalling 0.0687%. The team has a highly dedicated fanbase and a ferocious rivalry with the Dallas Cowboys, which appears to extend to beer-chugging as well as football games.
In 2017, victory over the Minnesota Vikings sent the Eagles to the Super Bowl and their fans onto the streets in celebration. And by 'streets' we also mean clambering onto cars and up street lights. In less amusing antics, some fans even pelted the Vikings' bus with bottles and other handy projectiles. One sozzled imbecile went so far as to drive a dune buggy up the steps of the city's art museum, the stairs themselves made famous in the movie Rocky. Despite being heavy underdogs, and to the surprise of some USA online casinos and sportsbooks, they actually went on to win Super Bowl LII, the only such triumph in the club's history.
Tottenham Hotspur
- Tottenham Hotspurs won the first-ever match to be played at the UEFA cup in 1971 against Wolverhampton.
- Maradona, the most famous football legend played for Tottenham against the Inter Milan Football Club.
- In 1963, Tottenham Hotspurs beat Atletico Madrid 5-1 becoming the first British club to win The ECWC.
- The player with the highest goal-count of all time was Jimmy Greaves, having played here from 1961 to 1970.
Spurs' fans know full well the team's reputation for putting in great performances only to bugger it all up at the last possible moment, or losing by the tiniest of margins. So maybe it's fitting that they're one unit per week behind rivals Chelsea on the list of average weekly alcohol consumption. Not that Spurs have been trophyless, they were the first team in the 20th century to achieve the FA Cup and League double, although that was all the way back in 1960-1.
Beer can be fun, but all things have their limits. How much is too much? Well, if your alcohol consumption interferes with actually enjoying watching your team that's probably a big warning sign that slowing down is in order. The drunkest fans aren't so much supporters who like a beer, as beer enthusiasts who occasionally imbibe while attending a sporting event.
A family of Spurs fans found this out the hard way in 2019 when they left a match against Ajax early. Why? Because they were so drunk they thought half-time was full-time, and wandered off with half the match left. At that point, Spurs were 2-0 down, but ended up winning 3-3 (due to away goals) to book a place in the Champions League final. Oops. Hopefully some of those fans had some real money bets on anyway.
Arizona Cardinals
- The Arizona Cardinals became a franchise in September, 1920 when they were called the Chicago Cardinals.
- In both the 1974, and in 1975, the Arizona Cardinals won the NFC Eastern Division Championships.
- The first-ever Arizona Cardinal to be elected to the Hall of Fame was FB Ernie Nevers, and this was in 1963.
- The Arizona Cardinals were founded in 1898, making them the oldest continuously running pro club in the US.
With a name like the Cardinals, sober, if not saintly, behavior might be anticipated. But the reality is quite different. Fifth on the list of the VinePair and BACtrack study, their supporters being some of the drunkest fans in the NFL (which is a pretty competitive league in its own right). Perhaps this can be forgiven given the side's record-breaking 72 season drought (having last won the championship shortly after World War Two concluded). Not only that, the Cardinals were a pioneering NFL side by becoming the first to lose 700 games.
That's a pretty gloomy set of facts, although the silver lining is the strangely strong home record in the play-offs (they've never been beaten, with a 5-0 record, and are the only NFL side to hold a home advantage like this).
The downside of having some of the drunkest fans in the NFL was epitomized in 2014 when a glorious victory over the Eagles (24-20) was besmirched by one drunken sot screaming in his girlfriend's ear, being way over the top, and generally being a buffoon on camera.
Chelsea
- In the late 1910s, the Chelsea became the first in Britain with an average attendance over 40,000.
- Their first League title in 1955 was a shock - they finished in the bottom half of the league on previous seasons.
- The freehold of the ground and the naming rights of Stamford Bridge stadium are owned by their fans.
- Frank Lampard is the only midfielder to have scored 150 or more goals in the Premier League with 177 goals.
One of the leading lights of the English Premier League in the last decade or two has been Chelsea, which might make their appearance here slightly perplexing. An average of 35 units per week in consumed alcohol certainly puts them near the sharp end of the drunkest fans in England, which is no mean feat considering how much the English love their alcohol.
And yet Chelsea was also the first English team to complete the UEFA treble, and won the EPL itself in 2014/5 and 2016/7, in addition to claiming the FA Cup in 2018. Perhaps we should remember that while fans may seek to drown their sorrows when times are tough, and especially if they don't win at the top UK online casinos, celebrating trophies also involves a fair quantity of alcohol.
Other people on the London Tube were certainly aware of the tipsy ways of some Chelsea supporters after a man who might just have had a bit too much to drink chanted the team's name endlessly in mid-2019. However, they soon got some peace and quiet by ejecting him from the carriage.
Dallas Cowboys
- The Dallas Cowboys have won the Super Bowl five times. They won Super Bowl VI, XII, XXVII, XXVIII, and XXX.
- The all-time leading scorer from the Dallas Cowboys was Emmitt Smith with 986 points, from 1990-2002.
- The team has several popular nicknames including America's Team, Doomsday Defense, The Boys and Big D.
- The Dallas Cowboys are worth approximately $4.1 billion. This makes them the most valuable NFL team.
Next up we have the NFL's Dallas Cowboys. The Cowboys have some interesting stats to their name, including being valued at $4bn in 2015, making them the most valuable sports team in the world (according to Forbes). On top of this immense financial muscle, the team has won multiple Super Bowls to date (five at the time of writing), so the question arises of why they have some of the drunkest fans.
Well, financial strength is nice, but fans want silverware, and while the team has enjoyed its fair share of Super Bowl triumphs the last win was in 1995, which is over a quarter of a century ago. A recent dry spell may be behind the love of liquor of the team's fans.
It's worth noting that drinking culture generally is a big part of sports, especially team sports. And that's not just on the fan side of things. The billionaire boss of the team, Jerry Jones, has certainly ruffled feathers and was once named Sports Illustrated's least favorite sports personality in three states. It was reportedly after a drunken remark, for which James apologized, that the then coach, Jimmy Johnson, departed from the team. And since Johnson said goodbye, the team's not been firing on all cylinders.
Crystal Palace
- Crystal Palace was founded on the 10th of September in 1905, which makes them one of the oldest teams in UK.
- Some of the most popular nicknames for Crystal Palace Football Club include The Eagles, and The Glaziers.
- The first CPFC was formed by workers at Crystal Palace, the grand exhibition hall constructed in glass.
- The most prominent players at Crystal Palace FC include legends like Alan White, Don Rogers, and Ian Wright.
We head back across the Pond to the United Kingdom, a realm that likes beer so much it invented pre-drinking. (For those blissfully unaware, pre-drinking is when you drink, sometimes heavily, before you go out to the pub). They've never won the English Premier League, but this team is very competitive when it comes to the drunkest fans, with an average of 40 units per week.
Crystal Palace's greatest result was finishing third in the league (it was known as the First Division back in the 1990-91 season they achieved this). They've managed to reach the FA Cup Final twice (1990 and 2016) but both times failed to seize their moment and get their hands on the coveted silverware.
It must be said there's something refreshingly down to earth about Palace, certainly compared with the big beasts of the EPL. Much of the fanbase is of traditional inheritance, supporting the team because your father does, unlike the glory dogs that attach themselves to more successful sides. But the contrasting success has certainly helped fuel a high level of boozy behavior.
Detroit Lions
- There is a myth about the Bobby Layne Curse which deemed the Lions to not win a championship in 50 years.
- In 1994, Toby Caston was killed in an automobile accident, thus continuing the Curse of the Detroit Lions.
- The all-time leading scorer from the Detroit Lions was Jason Hanson, having achieved 2,150 points.
- The Lions have never played in the Superbowl. In 1991, they were very close to playing in a title game.
When it comes to blood alcohol content the Buffalo Bills may top the NFL but they do have some competition for drunkest fans from the Detroit Lions. Fans of the Lions had a blood alcohol content of 0.0692% in the previously mentioned study, making them the second drunkest fans in the whole league. The good news is that more recent work by the Alcohol.org website suggests that while Detroit Lions fans still like a drink they might not be near the top of the league of merry men any more. This study found that Lions fans typically have 3 drinks in a sitting on a non-game day and 3.5 drinks on a game day, a marginal increase.
So why do Lions fans drink so much? It might be related to sporting form. Over the last 60 years the playoff results have not exactly been stunning for the team, so perhaps it's no surprise they have some of the drunkest fans seeking to drown their sorrows. Not to mention the unwanted record the team holds of being the oldest member of the NFL never to even appear in a Super Bowl, never mind actually winning it.
Everton
- Everton stayed in the top division since 1954, and were founding members of the Premier League in 1992.
- Everton are the 4th most successful team when it comes to top-flight titles. They won 9 in their history.
- The tower in Everton's crest is actually Prince Rupert's Tower. It is in the Everton district of Liverpool.
- William 'Dixie' Dean was unquestionably the best player to ever don Everton blue, in the 1920s and 1930s.
The comedian Reginald D. Hunter (an American living in the UK) once described Britons drinking the way Americans eat: to excess. Nobody's quite as envious as a less successful sibling, and an unkind gentleman might describe Everton fans as trying to replace silverware with booze. They certainly top one league table, however, that of drinking. A survey by Footballtips.com (football in the British sense of soccer, of course), found that Everton fans consume an average of 43 units of alcohol a week, often while betting at the best online casinos. That's the equivalent of 14 strong pints of beer, or 21 weaker pints.
Sharing a city with the supporters of the incredibly successful Liverpool team can't be easy, and may go some way to explaining why the Toffees drink almost twice as much as the red half of the city (43 units versus just 23 for Liverpool supporters).
Nor are the intoxicated antics of the Toffees limited to the shores of the UK. In 2014, plain-clothed police officers sought to quietly detain a pair of troublemakers in Lille, only for fellow fans (unaware of what was happening) to intervene and cause a ruck that had to be dispersed by French riot police.
Buffalo Bills
- They won the 1964 and '65 AFL Championships. They were the AFL Eastern Division Champions in 1964, '65, and '66.
- The Buffalo Bills Wall of Fame has existed since 1980, honoring players, administrative team and coaches.
- Before Ralph Wilson Stadium (1973 - present), the team played at the War Memorial Stadium (1960 - 1972).
- Their founder and owner, Ralph Wilson died in 2014 at the age of 95. He was the oldest NFL team owner in history.
Fans of the NFL may not necessarily be shocked to learn that Buffalo Bills fans are among the most inebriated in the sporting world. According to research by Alcohol.org, the prospect of game day so excites Bills fans that they drink 41% more than on a normal day.
Not only do they top seven weeks of breathalyzer tests by BACtrack and VinePair, but author Sean MacDonald has described them as the drunkest fans in the NFL. So what have they done to earn this epithet (beyond drinking copious amounts of assorted alcoholic beverages)?
MacDonald reported that the fans, unlike those of some other teams, were simply interested in getting as drunk as possible. That's all fun and games until the alcohol erodes inhibitions that we have for a reason and beer-fuelled antics spill over into violence, whether that's anger filled fisticuffs, or simply hurting oneself by drunkenly tumbling from a railing. One thing's for certain: the Bills fans are among the drunkest fans in the sporting world.
And that concludes our concise look at some of the drunkest fans in the world of sport. It's safe to say that those mentioned here are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to wild banter and beer-fueled celebration, but they often stand out as the most passionate or perhaps foolhardy depending on how you look at it.
