Good news — or bad, depending on how you look at it — for the Utah Jazz and their fans.
The team might be lurching, but, according to a recent study, the fans are not. At least not as indicated by an analysis of well more than a million online comments from NBA fans, ranking teams for positivity and for negativity. And in one other category: vulgarity.
Jazz fans, it turns out, swear less than any other NBA fan base. But when they do swear, the s-word is their favorite. A &%$*$@! important finding.
That’s right, the Jazz ranked 30th in number of expletives used on Reddit. They also topped the rankings in percentage of positive comments, with more than half of their commentary sending positive vibes. And Jazz fans were 27th in negative ones, as judged by what the study called “sentiment analysis.” The teams that sent out less negativity than the Jazz were the Trailblazers, the Wizards and the Spurs. Every other fan base was more negative.
Here are the results for the five fan bases using the most vulgarity and the bottom five, using the least:
1. New York Knicks.
2. Memphis Grizzlies
3. Indiana Pacers.
4. Dallas Mavericks.
5. Minnesota Timberwolves.
26. Charlotte Hornets.
27. Washington Wizards.
28. San Antonio Spurs.
29. Portland Trailblazers.
30. Utah Jazz.
All y’all’s — or some of y’all’s — mommas must have taught those of you who are roundball fans to keep your words, if not your thoughts, pure.
As for the overall positivity-meter readings, the top and bottom five fan bases were:
1. Utah Jazz.
2. Brooklyn Nets.
3. San Antonio Spurs.
4. Toronto Raptors.
5. Washington Wizards.
26. Detroit Pistons.
27. Memphis Grizzlies.
28. Indiana Pacers.
29. Minnesota Timberwolves.
30. New York Knicks.
There’s still a decent amount of expressed despair among Jazz fans, just not as much as there is with other NBA teams.
On the slightly different findings for straight negativity, Jazz fans still fared well, but were not at the top. Here are the five most negative and the five least negative:
1. Dallas Mavericks.
2. Boston Celtics
3. Minnesota Timberwolves.
4. Memphis Grizzlies.
5. Philadelphia 76ers.
26. Toronto Raptors.
27. Utah Jazz.
28. Portland Trailblazers.
29. Washington Wizards.
30. San Antonio Spurs.
I’m no psychologist or sociologist, but the reason for figuring these kinds of rankings, if you want to give them any authentic credibility, could be less than good news is the notion that sometimes when expectations are high, disappointment is high, too. If disappointment is high, that’s because fans, in fact, expect more. If fans don’t expect more, then they are less disappointed in poor results (read: hopeless).
Nobody around here was expecting the Jazz to do much this past season, or the season before, and, as it turned out, the Jazz weren’t expecting that, either. That could turn down the online blasts to some extent.
Calling Jazz fans “polite,” even in a relative sense, seems a stretch. That’s traditionally not been the case, as anyone who has attended a good number of games at the Delta Center over the years knows. The passion has raged.
The passion rages less nowadays. And the best way for fans to absorb losses is to get less involved emotionally. Or maybe it’s to keep the complaints about it tamped down — online and off it — because complaining makes nobody happier, everybody grumpier. Ask Knicks fans.
It will be interesting to keep an eye on these kinds of surveys, this one conducted by Vegas Insider, in the coming seasons as it pertains to the Jazz and the patrons who take the time to comment on them.
Utah finished 17-65 in 2024-25, 31-51 the previous season, 37-45 the year before that. That’s a trend that might begin, at least, to draw more foul words out of the minds and mouths of Jazz fans, no matter what their mommas taught them. And if it doesn’t, it could mean nobody gives a %$#&@&! #$%&, not anymore.
