If you haven’t read the new article from GQ magazine entitled The Worst Sports Fans in America, let me save you the trouble.

Even skimming through this completely arbitrary piece of garbled dribble can only be described as a colossal waste of time. Adam Winer’s piece claims to have done extensive, highly scientific research on his claimed top 15 worst sports fans in America, which doesn’t do him any favors by making it sound like he’s setting the audience up for a bad joke.

How does Winer even define “worst” to begin with? Looking at the teams he picked in the top ten, it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with what should be known as the only acceptable definition of “worst fan”.

Can we all agree fair-weather fans are the absolute worst? We’ve all seen the pink hats scattered about the ballpark and the guy who only switches on the television when his team is playing in October. Somewhere there’s a fan out there right now whose only football-watching minutes are the highlights on his local news station of his team hoisting the Vince Lombardi trophy.

When thinking about the worst sports enthusiasts in America, the crappiest fair-weather fans always come to mind. Fans like the ones with the dusty Atlanta Braves hats they bought back in the early nineties. Or Tampa Bay, who struggles to fill even a moderate amount of seats, even when their team is actually playing in the World Series. Tampa Bay’s Tropicana Field has tickets under ten bucks, free parking, and even allows you to bring your own food into the stadium. You can’t even get that kind of common courtesy at your local movie theater.

Passion is generally considered to be an admirable trait. Passionate fans should never fall into the “worst” category, unless they’re crazy soccer hooligans on meth literally killing people. You may be able to make the argument when Eagles fans throw batteries and beer bottles at their own team, but how could Phillies’ fans be voted into sharing the number 1 and 2 spots with their fellow comrades in the city of brotherly love? Sure, you might question their integrity because they occasionally vomit on an eleven-year old girl and enjoy taking nice jaunts around the bases with thrilling taser finales, but the one thing Phillies fans can’t be questioned on is their passion. Is anyone in the position to say they’ve never said or done something they shouldn’t have in the heat of passion?

GQ is great for convincing people like Kim Kardashian to pose nude in their latest spread, or for pictures of Tom Brady and Dwayne Wade holding baby goats and modeling the newest fashions. The grocery aisle material, however, was never known for its in-depth sports analysis or having anything remotely in common with the everyday sports fan.

GQ should stick to what they do best. Selling overpriced, ad-busting magazines to metrosexual, well-to-do wannabes.

——Seth Newton