I recently had been wondering: What North American city is the most pathetic city for sports?
The first question I had was how do we even measure how pathetic a city is for sports? I decided I would look at pro sports teams records with regards to the postseason. I'm starting with the NBA, but I will visit all of the big four leagues, and maybe MLS and WNBA later.
The first thing to keep in mind is that I am measuring this by city, not by team. This came about from being a disgruntled Sonics fan. The Seattle Supersonics moved from Seattle to Oklahoma in 2008. If you look on their Wikipedia page, it will show the Oklahoma City Thunder won a championship in 1979 - but that championship was won in Seattle. Nobody in Oklahoma celebrated that victory, aside from maybe a few scattered Sonics fans or Washington Bullets haters. It's Seattle's title, not Oklahoma City's.
So, we can measure success and failure by team all we want, but for all practical purposes, championships (and the lack thereof) belong not to the team, but to the city the team plays in. And because I'm more amused by futility than success, I wanted to look at which cities are the most futile when it comes to sports.
So, I'm looking at a few different stats here: total number of championships, number of appearances in the championships, division titles, seasons with at least 1 playoff series victory, and seasons with playoff appearances. Total championships are the one most people probably care about, but I was also interested in looking at the others. I am looking at these all on a per-season basis, for the total number of seasons played by a team in that city or metro area.
Some cities have more than one team. So for those cases, I just add the total number of seasons together. So the city as a whole needs to be twice as successful as the average city to keep pace, but they also have twice as many opportunities to be successful (without factoring in competence of the management of their teams).
I included defunct teams in the numbers, but only for cities that have hosted a team in any of the big 4 leagues in my lifetime. I've also ignored seasons for non-defunct teams when they played in such a city. That gives Chicago, Detroit, and Indianapolis a few extra seasons, for example, but I'm ignoring Rochester, Syracuse, and Providence.
I started at the 1946-47 season, and only considered seasons played in the BAA or NBA. I've ignored seasons in the ABA and any other league.
Now, let's get to the numbers! Feel free to look at my spreadsheet if you like, keeping in mind that the NHL, NFL and MLB are still a work in progress.
Worst at Playoff Appearances: Sacramento
It is much easier to get into the NBA playoffs than NFL or MLB. With 30 teams and 16 playoff spots, over half the teams make it in, and some of them may have losing records. So with this in mind, the teams that make the playoffs least frequently are frankly pretty pathetic.
Only Pittsburgh and Vancouver have had top-flight teams that have never made the playoffs. However, Pittsburgh's team is defunct and only lasted one season, and Vancouver's team lasted six seasons before moving to Memphis. San Diego had two teams that totaled ten seasons in their city, with only one playoff appearance, giving them a paltry 10% playoff rate.
Among cities that currently have teams, the worst is Sacramento, by far. They have only made the playoffs in 27.03% of their seasons, or 3.7 seasons per playoff. Rounding out the worst 5 among cities with current NBA teams are Charlotte (10 appearances in 32 seasons), New Orleans (8 in 25 seasons), the San Francisco Bay area (24 in 60 seasons), and Cleveland (23 in 53 seasons). San Francisco is rapidly changing their fortunes, however, thanks to the Warriors recent run of success.
Congratulations, Sacramento. You tried.
Worst at Playoff Advancement: New Orleans
What about the frequency at which a team wins at least one playoff series? Again, Pittsburgh and Vancouver have laid an egg, and they are joined by San Diego which has never won a basketball playoff. However, none of these teams currently have an NBA team, and only briefly had one in the first place.
Sacramento is still bad in this regard, but their playoff fortunes are slightly better than New Orleans, so NoLa gets the bottom spot on this list. New Orleans has had an NBA team advance only twice in 25 seasons of NBA played there, or 8%. After those two come Sacramento (4 advancements in 37 seasons) Charlotte (4 in 32 seasons), Orlando (5 in 33 seasons), and Washington DC (10 in 33 seasons).
Worst at Division Titles: Charlotte
Division titles guarantee a playoff spot, but don't really mean much more than that. Plenty of division winners have immediately lost in the playoffs. Don't I know that, as a fan of the erstwhile Sonics. Still, winning a division feels pretty good to the community a team plays in - so what teams are the worst in terms of division titles?
Six cities have teams that have never won a division title, but five of them do not have active NBA teams (Pittsburgh, Vancouver, San Diego, Buffalo, and Cincinnati). Only Charlotte has an active NBA team that has never won their division in 32 seasons played there. The next worst four cities are New Orleans (1 title in 25 seasons), Memphis (1 title in 21 seasons), Sacramento (2 titles in 37 seasons) and Dallas (4 titles in 42 seasons) - all have won at least one division title, but overall haven't been great at it. Get your act together, Charlotte.
Worst at Finals Appearances: Atlanta
What about number of times appearing in the finals themselves? Twelve cities that currently have NBA teams, or have had one in the past, have never had a team reach the finals. Six of these currently have an NBA team: Charlotte, New Orleans, Memphis, Sacramento, Atlanta, and Denver. So in these cases we probably have to look at their total number of seasons: Atlanta has the most at 54, followed by Denver at 48, Sacramento at 37, Charlotte at 32, New Orleans at 25 and Memphis at 21.
The weakest among the cities with active teams at reaching the finals, but with at least one finals appearance: Indianapolis has only had a team make the finals once, despite 51 seasons of professional basketball being played there. But since Atlanta has had 54 seasons of pro ball and no finals appearances, they are the all-time chumps.
Worst at Winning Championships: Atlanta
And the one you've all been waiting for: which cities are the worst at winning championships? First of all, all of the cities from the finals appearances category above will obviously not fare well here. We can add Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Orlando, and Oklahoma City to this list of ignominy as well.
Among cities with at least 1 championship title, the most underwhelming are New York City, Washington D.C, Cleveland, Portland, and Dallas. Phew, the Sonics just barely managed to avoid this list.
So, I think we once again put Atlanta at the bottom of this list, given that they've had 54 seasons and not even one finals appearance. No other city has more seasons with no titles. Interestingly, the Hawks did actually win a title while they were based in St. Louis, giving that city a respectable championship win rate of 5.88%, best among all cities that no longer have a team. But again, since the Hawks didn't win that in Atlanta, it doesn't count for Atlanta
And the city of maximum futility is: Atlanta!
There was no question about this one. Atlanta is not so bad when it comes to playoff advancement per season and playoffs per season, but they're mediocre on division titles and have an abysmal record with the finals, having never had a team to reach it in 54 seasons.
When considering other sports Atlanta's fortunes may change. When it comes to the NBA, no one is beneath Atlanta.
The best, I guess
Best city for championships: Boston, who has won a title in 22.37% of their seasons, or 4.47 seasons per title
Best city for finals appearances: Also Boston, 28.95% or 3.45 seasons per finals appearance.
Best city for division titles: San Antonio wins a division title in 47.83% of their seasons, or every 2.09 seasons.
Best city for playoff advancement: Back to Boston, who advances in the playoffs 53.95% of the time, or every 1.85 seasons.
Best city for making the playoffs: San Antonio, 76.09% of the time, they make the playoffs every time. Or every 1.13 seasons. Honorable mention, though. to St. Louis, whose Bombers (now defunct) and Hawks (now in Atlanta) actually made the playoffs in all but two of the 17 NBA seasons played in St. Louis.
Odds and Ends
Winning percentage in the finals
Indianapolis, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Oklahoma City and Orlando are the worst at winning the finals when they reach it, all having never won it despite reaching it. Of those, Phoenix has been to the finals the most often, three times. New York and Cleveland only win the finals in 20% and 25% of their visits, respectively.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Toronto is the only city that has won it every time - but they've only been once. Chicago would have had a perfect record were it not for the Chicago Stags, who lost the very first BAA title to the Philadelphia Warriors. Minneapolis (thanks to the Lakers) and San Antonio have good records once they reach the finals. Boston stands out, though - 22 finals appearances and 17 wins. Los Angeles doesn't have quite as good of a percentage: the Lakers have made it to the finals often, but don't win it as often as Boston.
Reaching the finals per playoff appearance
A whopping ten cities have never had a team reach the finals in spite of having at least one playoff appearance. Four of these cities do not have an active team: Buffalo, Kansas City, Cincinnati, and San Diego. Atlanta is the most inexcusable, 35 playoff appearances and not a single finals appearance. After that, it's Denver: 28 playoff runs and no appearances in the finals. Sorry Atlanta, I don't mean to kick you while you're down, but are you even trying?
Los Angeles has the best record of making the finals for each playoff berth, 42.19% of the time. Boston is runner-up at 39.29%
Winning in the playoffs per playoff appearance
Among cities with active teams, New Orleans is the worst at winning in the playoffs: their teams have appeared in the playoffs eight times, but have won at least one series in only two of those seasons. Portland comes next, having won a playoff series in only 11 of their 37 appearances, for a meager 29.73% success rate.
The Bay Area leads the pack in terms of playoff success: they win at least one series in 75% of their playoff appearances, 18 times in 24 berths. Just behind them are Boston, Los Angeles, and San Antonio.
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