Millionaires charging fans for autographs? Insulting them through the media? Fighting
them with sharpened cleats? Stay tuned to find out which athletes treat their fans like trash.
Not only does Michael Jordan top almost every list as the greatest basketball player to have
ever laced them up, you can also catch the six-time champion, billionaire, and owner of
the Charlotte Hornets atop almost any list ranking the best to ever do it across any field of play.
So what's his beef with fans? It's not like they haven't been supportive. MJ once held
both the record for biggest NBA contract ever and the best-selling NBA jersey of all time.
Yet he has a history of being ruthless to fans, just as he was to competitors back when he was
in the league, as anyone who has seen the documentary "The Last Dance" can attest.
"Could you sign this real quick for me?"
"Yeah, I'm a collector man, you owe me a thousand bucks."
On the one hand, it's his competitiveness which helped him become the legendary player he was,
but it also rubbed some people the wrong way. A group of kids at a Chris Paul camp witnessed this
after the Phoenix Suns point guard bet Jordan that the entire basketball camp would get free
Jordans if he missed three shots. Like a menace, Jordan sank all the shots in a now-viral video.
Cam Newton, at one point, was one of the brightest NFL stars to grace the gridiron.
We're talking about an athlete who went from playing junior college at Blinn College
to winning a Heisman and a national championship at Auburn and taking the Carolina Panthers to
the Super Bowl. Given his down-to-earth underdog story, one would think Newton would be relatable
to the average citizen. Well, if one did happen to think that, they'd be incorrect.
It appears there have been several instances the NFL career leader in quarterback rushing
touchdowns has treated his supporters unfairly, from allegedly charging fans to sign photographs
to getting into altercations with fans of opposing teams.
According to ProFootballTalk, the photo incident happened at a North Carolina mall where fans
were charged $125 for a signed photograph, $150 for a football, and $175 for a jersey.
Oh, and if you wanted a personal message, that was another $50.
Mind you, this is a man with a net worth of $75 million.
But wait, there's more! Flag & Cross reports that the former New England Patriot once acted as if he
was going to sign a young fan's item before faking them out and throwing it in the garbage can.
According to the Chicago Tribune, former Chicago
Bears linebacker and NFL Hall-of-Famer Brian Urlacher reportedly once said -
"Two of the people I don't care about: fans or media."
The quote came after he was asked if fans and media would
be critical of his then-head coach Lovie Smith
following a loss. He went on to say that he was annoyed by any fan criticism, and added -
"Those people don't know what they're talking about, obviously."
The reason for Urlacher's comments was that he was upset that the Bears were booed by
their own fans when they played home games. Being frustrated is perfectly understandable,
but publicly coming at your fanbase is another thing. Especially since it was
that same fan base that allowed him to become the highest-paid player in Bears history at one point.
"Were you a bully?" "Uhhhh,
yeah, yeah I was a bully"
Is there a clearer message to a fanbase that they're unappreciated
than an athlete's non-remorseful admission to cheating the sport they all are supposed to
collectively love? Despite the pay and privilege disparity, doesn't it all come down to the love of
the game at the end of the day? If so, it's certainly not the case for Lance Armstrong.
Forget the fact that Armstrong won seven straight Tour De France championships
from 1999 through 2005; more importantly, the American cyclist had become a hero,
as fans rallied around his story of beating an advanced testicular cancer.
He even sold 100 million "LiveStrong" bracelets in eight years.
And it's that kind of support that makes Armstrong's lack of
remorse about using steroids that more shocking.
According to HuffPost, in his sit-down with Oprah, he was anything but apologetic, saying -
"Everybody that gets caught is bummed out they got caught".
Although people seem to still believe Canadians to be the nicest human beings on earth,
former NHL player Rob Ray could possibly change that perception.
For starters, the Ontario native used to get into it on the ice.
According to Celebrity Hockey Classics, Ray racked up 700 penalty minutes playing
two full seasons with the Rochester Americans of the American Hockey League.
Then, once making his ​​NHL debut with the Sabres, his enforcer style continued,
as he amassed the most penalty minutes in NHL history for a player with one team.
By the time he ended his career, he was 6th overall in NHL history for most penalty minutes.
Well, Ray took his enforcer role seriously, even with fans,
as he once viciously beat a guy who approached the team's bench from the stands.
While reports say the fan's actions were due to a wager, Ray obviously didn't find it funny,
hitting the fan a reported 17 or 18 times before the cops finally got there.
Floyd Mayweather is one of the highest-paid athletes of all time, having won over $1 billion
in prize money over his career. According to Insider, the boxer nicknamed "Money" has
purchased a $50,000 diamond iPod case, had a candy shop in his own house at one point, and,
reportedly, buys new underwear and sneakers every day. To put it frankly, he's not hurting for loot.
So it was a surprise when, talking to radio personality Kelly Mac, he confessed
that he does not feel obligated to give to charities, specifically in Africa, saying -
"People say well, he got all this money, why is he not giving to Africa? Well, what has Africa
given to us? What has Africa came and gave to my children and to my family? Things work two ways."
Floyd also might be tone-deaf, considering his stance on social issues. While people were
boycotting Gucci due to blackface allegations associated with a controversial sweater,
Mayweather decided to buy them all up,
telling TMZ that he would wear what he wanted to wear, and saying -
"I support everybody. I like everybody. My thing is this,
I like to live life and do what I like to do."
Brooklyn Nets forward Kevin Durant, who averages about $40 million a
year from his basketball salary alone, has millions of followers both on Twitter and
Instagram — something he doesn't particularly care for. To say the Maryland native is in a
position of influence is an understatement, yet Durant seems to shrug off being a role model.
In fact, the high road is a foreign land to the two-time champ, who will clap back at fans, former
athletes, and even kids during games, on Twitter, Instagram, or wherever you come at him. He's even
bizarrely admitted to utilizing burner accounts on social media to anonymously defend himself.
Why is Tiger Woods, arguably golf's biggest figure over the past twenty-five years, unappreciative of
his loyal and disciplined fanbase? There have been several examples of how the man with 15
major championship victories has treated his fans poorly, or just generally displayed rude behavior.
According to GNN, a traveler at a private airport that Woods visited was so appalled
at the golfer's behavior towards the staff that he wrote an open letter to the Providence Journal's
Letters to the Editor page to chastise him. In an article from Bleacher Report,
they ranked Woods as the number one most arrogant golfer of all time. Steve Schirripa,
an actor from The Sopranos, went out of his way to call out Woods on his podcast, Talking Sopranos.
"As far as Tiger Woods, a f—ing HORRIBLE human being."
"Bad tipper right? Is that what you said?" "The WORST tipper!"
To top it all off, according to another report from Showbiz CheatSheet,
Woods allegedly blew off Bill Clinton for the longest time
after the president requested an autographed picture of them playing golf together.
Jose Canseco is probably most infamously known for his steroid use. The former Oakland
Athletics slugger even talked about it in his appropriately titled memoir, 'Juiced', writing —
"Steroids, used correctly, will not only make you stronger and sexier,
they will also make you healthier."
But beyond him taking steroids, which shows a disregard for the integrity of the game and the
fans, Canseco simply wasn't nice. The New York Times reported that he once threatened to bash
in a fan's head after incorrectly hearing the fan make a racial slur. Similarly,
Canseco has been caught sending his twin brother in place of himself at autograph signings and,
according to the Chicago Tribune, challenged a fan to a fight once.
Barry Bonds doesn't really hide his disdain for fans,
no matter how loyal and genuine of a supporter you are.
"'Barry this is one of our radio announcers, uh,
Joe Buck, you know, Jack Buck this is his kid' and Barry's like '...So?'"
For example, according to Daily Camera, a fan once lamented to Bonds that he'd been
trying to get his autograph for years only to get the response:
"I want you to keep your streak active."
In another instance, the San Francisco slugger
ripped a 12-year-old fan's card that was given to him to sign.
Since retiring, he's admitted to leaning into the villain role,
though he revealed some regret in an interview with Sports On Earth, saying -
"I mean, I was just flat-out dumb. What can I say? I'm not going to try to justify the
way I acted toward people. I was stupid. It wasn't an image that I invented on
purpose. [...] No one wants to be treated like that, because I was considered to be a terrible
person. You'd have to be insane to want to be treated like that. That makes no sense,"
Hall of Fame baseball player Ty Cobb, while great at the sport, was vile both on and off
the field. Cobb played with the Detroit Tigers from 1905 to 1926 and the Detroit Metro Times
once described him as a, quote, "bigot with a short temper and a penchant for sadism,"
Some of his antics include sharpening his cleats, then sliding feet-first into bases with his heel
high, so that he might injure an opponent. It was alleged in an episode of SportsCentury that
he attacked a Black groundskeeper when he was unsatisfied with the field condition,
and then attacked the man's wife when she came to defend him.
Arguably, according to The Hardball Times, his worst offense came after he took his
sharpened cleats and used them to attack a heckling fan. To somehow make matters worse,
the fan had lost most of his fingers in an accident and couldn't defend himself.
John McEnroe was as bright of a star as they came on the tennis court back in the day.
The Hall of Famer has 155 career titles, and has a career-winning percentage of 82.4 percent.
A part of his success, however, was due to his ferocity;
no one was safe from his temperament while he was on the court - not even the fans.
In one game in particular, McEnroe was heckled by a spectator after he questioned
a line call during a game. According to sources, the tennis legend quipped back,
"You got an appointment to get to?"
Then according to the Orlando Sentinel, there was the incident where, after a loss to fellow German
tennis player Boris Becker, he told a German fan to, quote, "go eat some Wiener schnitzel, pal."
Albert Belle could possibly be called the John McEnroe of baseball,
in that he had a mean temper and didn't care who saw it. The '90s baseball star had tons of power
and absolutely no clue on how to contain it, which, unfortunately, turned out bad
for fans at times, as his reputation for losing it followed him on every level.
When Belle was in college, for example, ESPN reports he was suspended for going
after a heckling fan into the stands. Then, while in the minors,
he was fined $5,000 for directing an obscene gesture to fans. Similarly, when a fan was
heckling Belle about his alcohol problem in the majors, they received a fastball to the chest.
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