National Cursing Day — an unofficial holiday to let loose and use fun, colorful language — has come and gone, but the lighthearted day’s effects remain a topic of discussion in the sports scene.
ActionNetwork.com has analyzed over 9.7 million comments from the subreddits of 205 fandoms across the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, MLS, Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and Ligue 1 to uncover which sports fandoms are the most foul-mouthed and which fandoms are the politest.
The analysis was based on a list of English swear words. For the foreign sports leagues’ swear words, the analysis was based on lists in their respective languages: Spanish for La Liga, Italian for Serie A, German for Bundesliga, and French for Ligue 1. Read on for the full study to learn more and see the results.
Key Highlights
The NHL’s Edmonton Oilers were found to be the most foul-mouthed fandom across all of the major sports leagues, with 17.89% of their comments containing swear words.
La Liga’s Athletic Bilbao follows in second place, with 17.17% of their comments including swear words. The NHL’s Dallas Stars trails in third place, with 15.44% of their comments incorporating swear words.
The MLB’s St. Louis Cardinals turned out to be the politest fandom across all major sports leagues, with just 3.13% of their comments containing swear words.
MLB’s Baltimore Orioles follows in second place, with only 3.37% of their comments including swear words and Washington Nationals trails in third place, with 3.47% of comments incorporating swear words.
A spokesperson for ActionNetwork.com said, “An analysis of over 9.7 million fan comments from the subreddits of over 200 fandoms across 10 sports leagues found NHL’s Edmonton Oilers to be the most foul-mouthed fandom, with 17.89% of their comments containing swear words, followed by La Liga’s Athletic Bilbao, with 17.17% of their comments including profanities, and NHL’s Dallas Stars with 15.44% vulgar comments. On the opposite end, MLB’s St. Louis Cardinals turned out to be the most-polite fandom, with only 3.13% of their comments containing swear words.”
The Most Foul-Mouthed Sports Fandoms
The top five most foul-mouthed fandoms with the most swear words were the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers, with 17.89% of comments containing swear words, La Liga’s Athletic Bilbao, with 17.17% of comments including swear words, and NHL’s Dallas Stars, with 15.44% of comments incorporating swear words, NHL’s Boston Bruins, with 15.33% of comments, and La Liga’s Atletico Madrid, with 15.17%.
The Politest Sports Fandoms
In contrast, the top five politest fandoms with the least swear words were MLB’s St. Louis Cardinals, with just 3.13% of comments containing swear words, Baltimore Orioles, with 3.37% of comments including swear words, Washington Nationals, with 3.47% of comments incorporating swear words, Philadelphia Phillies, with 3.48% of comments, and Detroit Tigers, with 3.48%.
Methodology
ActionNetwork.com’s final analysis was carried out in November 2026 with ongoing collection throughout 2026.
In total, 9,742,491 comments from the subreddits of 205 sports fandoms across 10 major sports leagues were analyzed for comments that contained swear words.
The final analysis was based on a list of English swear words. For foreign sports leagues, the swear words of their respective languages were included, with Spanish for La Liga, Italian for Serie A, German for Bundesliga, and French for Ligue 1.
Each sports fandom was assigned a percentage value based on the percent of the comments on their subreddit that contained swear words.
In total, 949,750 comments containing swear words were identified across the 205 sports fandoms analyzed.
The minimum number of comments collected per fandom was 1,000. Any sports fandoms with comments below this specific threshold were excluded from the analysis.
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