Washington Wizards fans have endured years of rebuilding, lottery seasons and tough losses, but a new study suggests they’ve managed to stay remarkably positive through it all.
A new analysis from Action Network has officially ranked the Wizards as one of the friendliest fanbases in the NBA, placing Washington #2 for politeness, #3 for positivity and last for toxicity (negativity) — meaning the fanbase was found to be the friendliest in the league over the past year!
The findings paint a very different picture from the stereotypes often associated with passionate sports fans, showing Wizards supporters are generally respectful and optimistic despite the franchise’s recent struggles.
While the team continues its rebuild around a young core, it appears Washington fans have built a reputation for keeping conversations constructive rather than toxic.
Why Washington Wizards fans ranked among the NBA’s friendliest fanbases
It’s rare to see one fanbase score highly across multiple measures of positivity, but that’s exactly what happened for Wizards fans.
According to Action Network’s study, Washington finished the NBA’s most second-most polite fanbases, meaning only one team had a lower percentage of Reddit comments containing profanity.
At the same time, Wizards supporters ranked third for positivity, with 50.80% of comments carrying a positive sentiment — only the Utah Jazz and Brooklyn Nets ranked higher in that category.
Perhaps the most impressive result came in the study’s negativity rankings.
Although Washington finished last in the “most negative” category, that’s actually good news. The rankings run from most negative to least negative, meaning the Wizards were identified as the least negative NBA fanbase overall.
Rather than constantly criticizing the team or engaging in hostile online discussions, Wizards fans generated the lowest proportion of negative comments among all 30 NBA fanbases.
Taken together, the three rankings suggest Wizards supporters have cultivated one of the league’s healthiest online communities—even after several seasons without sustained playoff success.
How NBA fan study was conducted
To produce the rankings, Action Network analyzed more than 1.6 million Reddit comments posted across the subreddits of all 30 NBA fanbases during the previous 12 months.
Researchers first measured profanity by calculating the percentage of comments containing swear words, allowing them to rank each team’s fans from the most foul-mouthed to the most polite.
The study also evaluated the emotional tone of every comment using a sentiment analysis tool to classify posts as positive, negative or neutral.
Those results were then aggregated to determine which NBA fanbases were the most positive—and which were the least.
Similar methodology has been used across Action Network’s fan sentiment studies covering other major sports leagues.
As with any study focused on Reddit activity, the results reflect the behavior of each team’s online subreddit community rather than every fan.
Even so, after analyzing well over a million comments, the findings provide one of the largest snapshots yet of how NBA fanbases interact online—and Wizards fans emerged as some of the league’s friendliest.
