Update: The Cavaliers’ victory over Golden State in the 2016 N.B.A. finals Sunday night ended the drought. Perhaps it’s finally time to scratch Cleveland off the list.
The Cleveland Cavaliers have a chance to end one of the most brutal losing streaks in American sports: their home city’s 50-year major-championship drought. But Cleveland’s fans aren’t the only ones seemingly living under a curse. Here, we rank the 13 worst-suffering sports cities, based on both data and less quantifiable factors, such as the misery of losing on a dubious referee’s call (we’re looking at you, Buffalo) or coaching decision. When the Cavaliers start the N.B.A. finals Thursday night, they’ll be doing so in another city on our list: Oakland.
We’ve come up with a few metrics to measure sports pain. One is the combined number of seasons since a city’s last championship, across the four major sports. Cleveland is now up to an incredible 147 title-less seasons since the Browns’ 1964 N.F.L. championship. Another measure is the percentage of seasons over the last 50 years that have ended with a title. For reference, 10 percent of Boston’s team seasons since 1965 have ended with a title. Most of the 13 cities on this list here don’t clear 2 percent. We also tell you how many close calls — which we define as unsuccessful appearances in a sport’s final four — a city has had. Sorry, Philadelphia.
For each city, we’ve listed a most painful loss, and we want to hear from fans if you think we’ve picked the wrong one. We invite you to tell us, via Facebook or Twitter, what your city’s worst loss of the last 50 years really was and why.
We give more details about our methodology at the bottom of this post. Now onto the Unlucky 13:
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1. Cleveland
Seasons since last title 147
Championship seasons since 1965 0%
Close calls 10%
Toughest loss 1997 World Series
Cleveland’s sports history is so miserable that its most famous moments of pain do not even include its worst one. The best known include Red Right 88 (a doomed Browns pass play in 1981), The Drive (cause of a brutal 1987 playoff loss to the Broncos), The Fumble (same thing, next season) and The Shot (by Michael Jordan, eliminating the Cavaliers in 1989).
But all of those moments occurred in games before the championship round. Even if the Cleveland teams had won, they would still have faced at least more hurdle — at least one more chance to lose in excruciating Cleveland style.
That’s why the sine qua non of the city’s sports pain is the 1997 World Series. Entering the ninth inning of Game 7, the Indians led the Marlins, then a teal-wearing franchise in just its fifth season of existence, 2-1. Three more outs, and Cleveland had a championship. Jose Mesa, the Indians’ closer, couldn’t get the outs.
The team’s shortstop, Omar Vizquel, later blamed Mesa, suggesting he was not up for the big moment. (“You could almost see right through him.”) Mesa responded by vowing to hit Vizquel with a pitch in any future at-bat in which they ever faced each other (“If I face him 10 more times, I'll hit him 10 times”) — and nearly made good on the promise. Painful indeed.
Teams Indians, Cavaliers, Browns. Former teams: Barons (N.H.L.), Crusaders (World Hockey Association).
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2. Atlanta
Seasons since last title 70
Championship seasons since 1965 0.6%
Close calls 9%
Toughest loss 1981 N.F.C. divisional playoff, leading the Cowboys, 24-10, in the fourth quarter, at home
Call it the Olympic Curse. Since the city hosted the 1996 Games — an Olympics marred by transportation problems and worse — it has not won any titles. Its last came nine months before the opening ceremony, when the Braves won the 1995 World Series. The various venues used for the Games have never been home to a championship team.
The Braves are known for making the playoffs for 14 straight seasons, starting in 1991, with one of the game's great pitching rotations, and finding various ways to lose in October. The Atlanta Hawks and the Falcons have never won a championship for Atlanta, despite a half-century of existence for each.
Keep in mind that an average city will have three times as many close calls (using our definition) as championships, because there are three losing semifinalists for every champion. Atlanta's ratio? A heartbreaking 14 to one.
Many Atlanta fans take some solace in caring more about college sports than pro sports. But it’s not as if Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia have been winning many titles lately, at least not in the sports with the largest fan followings. If LeBron James can bring a title to Cleveland, Atlanta becomes a candidate for the nation’s worst-suffering sports town.
Teams Braves, Hawks, Falcons. Former teams: Thrashers (N.H.L.), Flames (N.H.L.).
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3. Buffalo
Seasons since last title 101
Championship seasons since 1965 1%
Close calls 12%
Toughest loss 1991 Super Bowl, wide right
A common mistake by N.F.L. coaches is treating all parts of “field-goal range” as the same. In the last drive of Super Bowl 25, the favored Bills, trailing by one, showed only modest urgency and settled for getting to the Giants’ 29-yard line before calling on Scott Norwood to try a 47-yard field goal in the final seconds. It was longer than any he had made on grass that season, and he missed, wide right.
The Bills would lose each of the next three Super Bowls as well. And the decade of the 1990s would end with more misery for Buffalo: The Sabres lost the Stanley Cup finals in overtime of Game 6 to the Dallas Stars, on a much-debated goal in which Brett Hull’s skate was in the crease.
Buffalo's only major championship remains the 1965 A.F.L. title, won by the Bills.
Teams Bills (N.F.L. and A.F.L.), Sabres. Former teams: Braves (N.B.A.)
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4. San Diego
Seasons since last title not applicable
Championship seasons since 1965 0%
Close calls 6%
Toughest loss 2007 A.F.C. playoff game, at home to Patriots after 14-2 regular season
Eighty-degree weather and Pacific beaches don’t lend themselves to agonized reflection in the way that winters in Chicago or Boston do. So you probably haven’t read much about San Diego’s history of sporting frustration. But it’s real. The Chargers, the Padres and a handful of mostly forgotten basketball and hockey teams have combined for 112 championship-less seasons over the past half-century. Only Cleveland has played more seasons in that span without winning.
The specter now haunting San Diego is relocation. The Chargers are a candidate to move north to Los Angeles, much as the N.B.A.’s Clippers did in 1984.
Teams Padres, Chargers (N.F.L. and A.F.L.). Former teams: Rockets and Clippers (N.B.A.); Conquistadors/Sails (A.B.A); Mariners (W.H.A.).
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5. Washington
Seasons since last title 79
Championship seasons since 1965 2.7%
Close calls 4%
Toughest loss 2012 division series, when the Nats lost a 6-0 lead in the deciding game
Within a single hour on May 13 this year, the Capitals were eliminated in a Game 7 overtime, and the Wizards lost an important Game 5 at the buzzer. It was a fitting capstone to more than 20 years of Washington sports melancholy, dating to the Redskins’ last Super Bowl win, in 1992. In Washington, sports championships are a bit like VCRs: Unless you’re at least 30 years old, you probably don’t have first-hand experience with one.
The Capitals have come to be known as some of hockey’s most famous chokers, having blown three-games-to-one series leads five times. (Combined, the rest of the league has done so only 23 times.) The Wizards tend to avoid painful losses by being bad: They have won a mere three playoff series in the last 30 years.
And the Redskins, long the city’s marquee franchise? They may have the most oft-mocked team owner in professional sports. They have had only two winning seasons in the last eight. And many fans consider their team name to be a racist insult.
No wonder Washington fans have taken to the Nationals with such joy. The Nats have broken hearts by being upset in the playoffs in two of the last three seasons — and in brutal fashion in 2012 — yet they also have a real chance to win Washington a championship in the near future.
Teams Senators, Nationals, Capitals, Redskins, Bullets/Wizards. Former team: Caps (A.B.A)
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6. Minneapolis-St. Paul
Seasons since last title 87
Championship seasons since 1965 1.2%
Close calls 12%
Toughest loss 2010 N.F.C. title game, and Brett Favre’s late interception
Before the Bills became synonymous with Super Bowl failure, the Vikings were. They lost four of the first 11 Super Bowls. More recently, disappointment has struck one round earlier, in the conference title game. They lost the 1999 version to the Falcons in overtime, after Vikings kicker Gary Anderson, who hadn't missed a field goal all season, missed from 38 yards in the fourth quarter. The Vikings, who have never won a Super Bowl, also lost the 2010 conference title game in overtime, this time to the Saints.
The Twins, winners of two exciting World Series in 1987 and 1991, haven’t been back since. The Wild and the Timberwolves have never reached the title round, and the North Stars never won a Stanley Cup. The Twin Cities do have reasons for optimism, thanks to promising young players on both the Vikings and Timberwolves – the latter of which will also pick first in this month’s N.B.A. draft.
Teams Twins, Vikings, Wild, Timberwolves. Former teams: North Stars (N.H.L.); Fighting Saints (W.H.A), Muskies (A.B.A.), Pipers (A.B.A.)
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7. Philadelphia
Seasons since last title 27
Championship seasons since 1965 3%
Close calls 19%
Toughest loss 2010 Stanley Cup finals (or name an Eagles loss — so many to choose)
If making a sport's final four were all that mattered, Philadelphia would be a beacon of success. Its teams have reached that stage in an impressive 22 percent of their seasons over the last half-century, a better rate than Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and every other city with at least two teams other than Boston.
But Philadelphia's teams almost always come up just short. Since 1984, only the 2008 Phillies have won a title. A remarkable 19 percent of the city's seasons since 1965 have ended with what we're calling a close call — a final-four appearance without a championship.
Making matters worse, the immediate future doesn't look bright for three of the teams. In fact, Philadelphia has a claim on being the city with the four worst combined teams today. The Eagles (a bright spot with a 10-6 season) and the Flyers both missed the playoffs in their most recent seasons. The 76ers won just 22 percent of their games last year and have become notorious for trying to create bad teams in order to stockpile top draft picks. The Phillies are hovering near last place in their division, with few promising young players.
Does all that make the notorious grumpiness of Philadelphia fans — known as boo birds — a little more understandable?
Teams Eagles, Phillies, 76ers, Flyers. Former team: Blazers (W.H.A.)
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8. Phoenix
Seasons since last title 55
Championship seasons since 1965 1.2%
Close calls 11%
Toughest loss 1976 N.B.A. finals, Game 5
Phoenix, like San Diego, is a Sun Belt city with a more tortured sports history than many people from other regions realize. Yes, the Diamondbacks won one of the great World Series, overcoming Mariano Rivera in the ninth inning of Game 7 in 2001. But heartbreak is otherwise the norm in Phoenix. The city's teams have made the semifinals in their sport 13 times over the last half-century — and fallen short 12 of those 13 times in winning a title.
The football Cardinals lost the 2009 Super Bowl after leading in the final minute. Charles Barkley could never overcome Michael Jordan. And Phoenix fans of a certain age will never forget the Suns’ triple-overtime loss to the Celtics in the 1976 finals, which has been called both the greatest and wildest N.B.A. finals game.
Teams Suns, Cardinals, Coyotes, Diamondbacks. Former team: Roadrunners (W.H.A.)
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9. Oakland
Seasons since last title 69
Championship seasons since 1965 4.7%
Close calls 14%
Toughest loss 2001 A.L. division series, blowing a 2-0 lead in games, thanks in part to Derek Jeter’s flip
"In the 1970s, Oakland easily could have laid claim to the name 'Titletown, USA,' " as Chip Johnson of The San Francisco Chronicle recently wrote. The A’s, the Raiders and the Warriors all won titles that decade. But no longer. The city’s last title came in the 1989 World Series, a four-game sweep by the A’s over the Giants, interrupted by a major earthquake. Oakland's recent futility has been especially tough given the success enjoyed by nearby San Francisco, from the 49ers in the 1980s and 1990s to the Giants over the last five years.
The Warriors are favored to end Oakland’s title drought by beating the Cavaliers in the N.B.A. finals — and extending Cleveland’s misery. But even that title run has come with a small shadow for Oakland fans: The Warriors are trying to move across the bay to San Francisco in the next several years. The Raiders may move yet again, too, and the A's have also thought about it.
Teams A's, Raiders, Warriors. Former teams: Seals/Golden Seals (N.H.L.); Oaks (A.B.A)
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10. Kansas City
Seasons since last title 57
Championship seasons since 1965 1.7%
Close calls 11%
Toughest loss 2014 World Series
Every Little Leaguer has heard the advice: Run your hardest. Don’t watch the ball. Don’t assume anything.
But when Alex Gordon hit a sinking line drive to the outfield – with two outs in the ninth inning of Game 7 of last year’s World Series and with the Royals trailing, 3-2 — he did not appear to run his hardest. Only when the outfielders misplayed the ball did Gordon pick up his pace to a sprint. He made it to third, but no farther, and the next batter fouled out, ending the Series. It’s impossible to know whether Gordon could have scored if he had run full out, but he clearly would have helped his team’s chances.
Kansas City’s last title remains the Royals’ 1985 World Series win, another series in which late-game events — thanks to an umpire, on this occasion — provided fodder for years of what-ifs.
Teams Royals, Chiefs (A.F.L. and N.F.L.). Former teams: Kings (N.B.A.); Scouts (N.H.L.)
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11. Houston
Seasons since last title 55
Championship seasons since 1965 4.2%
Close calls 14%
Toughest loss 1986 National League Championship Series, to the Mets
On May 12, 1994, the sports section of The Houston Chronicle ran a banner headline: “Choke City.” The Rockets had just blown the largest fourth-quarter lead in N.B.A. playoff history, to the Suns, only a year after the Oilers lost a 35-3 playoff lead to the Bills. The Rockets would come back to win not only the Suns series but also their first championship. And Houston began calling itself “Clutch City,” a nickname that persists.
But it’s still not clear whether Clutch City or Choke City is the more accurate moniker. The Rockets haven’t been to the N.B.A. finals since winning a second straight title, in 1995. Neither the Oilers nor their successors, the Texans, have made a Super Bowl. The Astros have lost some of the most excruciating games in baseball playoff history.
How, then, has Houston racked up four championships in the last 50 years? You’re obviously forgetting the Houston Aeros’ back-to-back World Hockey Association titles in 1974 and 1975, both sweeps, over the Chicago Cougars and the Quebec Nordiques. Because the W.H.A. merged with the N.H.L. in 1979, we’re counting the seven W.H.A. seasons here.
Teams Astros, Texans, Rockets. Former teams: Oilers (N.F.L.), Aeros (W.H.A.), Mavericks (A.B.A.).
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12. Cincinnati
Seasons since last title 48
Championship seasons since 1965 2.8%
Close calls 6%
Toughest loss 1989 Super Bowl, on a last-minute drive to Joe Montana's 49ers
Cincinnati is another city whose sports teams were once envied by fans elsewhere. Oscar Robertson made the N.B.A.'s Royals a team to watch, before they fled to Kansas City and ultimately Sacramento. The Bengals made two Super Bowls from 1982 to 1989. The Reds won three World Series in 16 seasons. But the last quarter century has been grim.
Cincinnati fans have not seen a team advance during any stage of the playoffs — either a playoff win by the Bengals or a series win by the Reds — in almost 20 years. They haven't even been able to enjoy the past properly: When the Reds planned a celebration this April for the city's last champions, its beloved 1990 team, rain kept many fans from showing up.
Teams Reds, Bengals. Former teams: Royals (N.B.A.), Stingers (W.H.A.)
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13. Seattle
Seasons since last title 2
Championship seasons since 1965 1.7%
Close calls 9%
Toughest loss Malcolm Butler and the 2015 Super Bowl
It may seem strange to include a city that won the Super Bowl just 16 months ago, but it won’t seem strange to most Seattleites. The Seahawks' very recent success aside, the city has had a rough few sports decades. It lost its basketball team to Oklahoma City in 2008, right as that team was getting good. And the 2001 Mariners hold the distinction of having won more regular-season games in a single season than any other team over the last century, only to be trounced in the American League Championship Series by the Yankees.
As for those Seahawks, the most recent Super Bowl didn’t have quite the happy ending that the 2014 version did.
Teams Mariners, Seahawks. Former teams: Pilots (M.L.B.), SuperSonics (N.B.A.)
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14. Methodology
We counted every season since 1965 in the four major sports. We realize some fans would argue for including Major League Soccer, but it has attracted substantially less fan interest by most measures than baseball, basketball, football or hockey.
We focused on cities with at least two teams that have existed for many decades. Several cities with only one team, like Orlando and Sacramento, or two relatively new teams, like Charlotte and Nashville, have also failed to win a major title.
We included seasons from the three upstart leagues that merged into a major league: the American Basketball Association, the American Football League and the World Hockey Association. We did not count the 1994 baseball season, in which no team won a title because of a strike, or the 2004-5 season for the N.H.L., when a lockout prevented any games from being played.
We excluded teams with suburban identities — like the Anaheim Ducks, the Los Angeles Angels, the New Jersey Devils and the New York Islanders — from the nearby city's count of seasons and titles. But we counted the Green Bay Packers as part of Milwaukee and the Golden State Warriors as part of both Oakland and San Francisco; by any standard, the Packers are Milwaukee's football team, and the Warriors are the entire Bay Area's basketball team.