Which city's sports fans have suffered most? I'm sick of hearing Cubs fans, for example, complain even though their city's NBA team racked up championships like Britney racking up referrals from child welfare agents. Or Red Sox fans (before 2004) moaning even though the Pats sported multiple Super Bowl rings and the Boston Garden's roof might as well have collapsed from the weight of NBA banners.
No, truly suffering sports fans live in a city where no team's won squat in recent memory. To figure out which city's fans have suffered the most, I applied a simple formula: Your metro area gets one point for each season it's had a team in the four major team professional sports (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL) since one of those teams last won a title. City with the highest Misery Score has suffered the most.
Here are a couple examples: Denver, which last won when the Avalanche got the Stanley Cup in 2001, gets 24 points -- for the six years since then for the NFL Broncos, NHL Avalanche, NBA Nuggets and MLB Rockies. Salt Lake City, which has never won a title in any league, gets 28 points for the 28 years the NBA Jazz have played there.
I spent some time with Wikipedia and calculated the Misery Score for each metro area with a team in one of the "big four" leagues. I did not give any metro area "double credit" for having two teams in one league, e.g. the Giants and Jets for New York in the NFL. AFAIAK, that's two chances for your city to win a title. If you choose not to root for one or both of those teams, that's your problem. I'm not going to get into this "Well, I live on the north side of Chicago and root for the Cubs, Blackhawks, Packers and Bucks, so I've suffered more than you give Chicago credit for." Hey, if that's who you chose to root for -- sucks to be you.
City Last title Misery Score
1. Cleveland 1964 (NFL) 124
2. Philadelphia 1983 (NBA) 96
3. Buffalo never 93
San Diego never 93
5. Seattle 1979 (NBA) 84
6. Minneapolis 1991 (MLB) 56
7. New Orleans never 50
8. Washington, D.C. 1992 (NFL) 48
SF Bay Area 1995 (NFL) 48
10. Atlanta 1995 (MLB) 44
Kansas City 1985 (MLB) 44
12. Cincinnati 1990 (MLB) 34
Houston 1995 (NBA) 34
14. Dallas 1999 (NHL) 32
15. Charlotte never 30
Milwaukee 1997 (NFL- Green Bay) 30
Portland 1977 (NBA) 30
18. Salt Lake City never 28
19. Denver 2001 (NHL) 24
Phoenix 2001 (MLB) 24
21. Nashville never 19
22. Orlando never 18
23. New York/NJ 2003 (NHL) 16
24. Baltimore 2001 (NFL) 12
Detroit 2004 (NBA) 12
Jacksonville never 12
27. Tampa Bay Area 2004 (NHL) 9
28. Chicago 2005 (MLB) 8
Columbus never 8
Memphis never 8
31. Miami 2006 (NBA) 4
32. Pittsburgh 2006 (NFL) 3
St. Louis 2006 (MLB) 3
34. Raleigh 2006 (NHL) 1
35. Boston 2007 (MLB) 0
Indianapolis 2007 (NFL) 0
Los Angeles 2007 (NHL) 0
San Antonio 2007 (NBA) 0
- I counted the 2004-5 NHL season, even though it wasn't played, since it was miserable for sports fans.
- I counted franchises no longer located in a metro area only for the years that franchise played in that area since the area's last title by any team in the four major sports.
- New Orleans gets "credit" for the two years the Hornets played in OKC and the one year the Saints played in San Antonio.
- To calculate the misery index for San Diego and Buffalo, I counted those years the Chargers and Bills played years in the AFL, as well as NFL. I didn't have to count years in the ABA for existing NBA franchises, since all four of those cities have won titles since the ABA/NBA merger, thanks to Indianapolis' victory in this year's Super Bowl.
FWIW, under this system, the Colts' win in Super Bowl 41 was the biggest relief for a city's sports fans since Houston's win in the 1994 NBA Finals. Indy's score under this system before the Colts' win would have been 55, which would have put Indy then in sixth place on the list.
And, to disagree with Mr. Drew Carey, Cleveland doesn't rock!
Either way, this was interesting and I never thought to look at this way.
kicking clevelands butt since 1933!!!
Love ya Black & Gold
This may be off topic, but it is fun!
Four of the top five most miserable cities don't have NHL teams, so the ranking at the top wouldn't change much. The one city with an NHL franchise, Philadelphia, would drop some, but not out of the top five.
The cities whose most recent titles came from the NHL all won titles in other sports within a few years, so there aren't any other huge jumps there. Raleigh would go off the list entirely, though, as it has no other major league team.
Yeah, the NHL is clearly the number-four league, but the Stanley Cup is such a cool trophy that winning it brings a lot of relief to a city. That's why I kept it in: more for the Stanley Cup than the NHL.
Nice work--of course I am not thrilled because I am a die hard Cleveland fan. However at least now I know my heart can withstand just about anything since all Cleveland teams have all broken my heart many times :).
I find it somewhat amusing that some inadverdently want their Cities misery index to be higher -- what I wouldn't give for Cleveland to be nowhere on the list!
Anyway thanks for keeping the board alive as go into our quiet period.
But then I thought of friends of mine from upstate New York. Watching them, I think it is possible, maybe even probable, that watching your team go to the Super Bowl four times, and lose them all, provokes more misery than never seeing your team make the playoffs.
So... since I could not decide whether playoff advancement meant more, or less, misery, I stuck with the simpler formula: It's all about the championships.
The Mariners had by far the best record in baseball that year. They won 116 games, which set a new American League record for number of wins.
But did we get to go to the World Series?
No. Damn Yankees.
But seriously, Robert, I think you totally missed the point about Tampa Bay. Here, our misery index is always 0, no matter what our sports teams do. Why?
a) It's 82 degrees and partly cloudy on Nov 21st.
b) Busch Gardens is open 365 days each year (366 in leap years!).
c) We have beautiful Gulf beaches less than an hour away, and just as beautiful Atlantic beaches just over two hours away.
d) We're only an hour from the House of Mouse.
e) If we don't like our own sports teams, there's always Orlando, Miami, Jacksonville...or in a worst case scenario, Atlanta or New Orleans. It's not unusual to see a Buccaneers flag on one side of a car and a Miami flag on the other...
So you see, no matter what happens in the Sports World, we are always smiling! Misery index = 0!
Actually, I thought about that looking at San Diego so high up on the list. I mean, lots of folks will feel some sympathy toward fans in Cleveland and Buffalo, but San Diego? Nope. Teams stink? Hit the beach.
And how can you not include the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in their years of misery, especially their inaugral season?
At least it's not Boston, where sports fans can't seem to be happy despite the fact it's been raining championships recently.
This article has been archived and is no longer accepting comments.
It's all about the karma.