The Most Cursed Sports Cities in America

[ISiddiqui]

Log In - The New York Times

From the Upshot:

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.

#1 is totally right (Cleveland) as is #2 (Atlanta).

[BYU 14]

If you want to get sports specific

Baseball - Chicago
Football - Buffalo
Hoops - Cleveland
Hockey - Winnipeg/Phoenix (probably a better choice here)

[Brian Swartz]

I say Detroit beats Buffalo in football and it's not even close. Otherwhise, yeah.

[Umbrella]

I would argue Phoenix for basketball. The Suns are easily the most popular team in town (or at least they were before Sarver), and they have been consistently good, but never good enough to win it all.

Nobody in Phoenix really cares about hockey, even though I agree that is a bad franchise.

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

I say Detroit beats Buffalo in football and it's not even close. Otherwhise, yeah.

+100

[EagleFan]

We're number one!!!!

(for getting to the final four... )

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

Originally Posted by BYU 14

If you want to get sports specific

Baseball - Chicago
Football - Buffalo
Hoops - Cleveland
Hockey - Winnipeg/Phoenix (probably a better choice here)

Disagree on your assessment of Chicago

[Young Drachma]

Read that article and disagreed with their methodology because they just totaled up seasons like crazy. But not majorly, just some random cities that probably didn't need to be on there in favor of ones that should have been.

[cuervo72]

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.

Ok, I guess I get excluding Anaheim, California/Anaheim/LA, and New Jersey. The Islanders though? I mean, they didn't exclude the Jets and Giants, did they?

[Galaril]

Houston has to be in a few of these . I grew up a Houston fan in the 80s in Pro football, baseball, basketball , and college football and baseball and they had some,great teams especially between 1978-1988 and zippo. I know they won a pair if NBA championships but those seem to be asterisk by most NBA fans as they win becuz Jordan was on hiatus from 1994-1996.

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by LastWhiteSoxFanStanding

Disagree on your assessment of Chicago

Okay, one side of Chicago