Most Cursed City in Sports

[Cujo]

5 hours ago, Magnus said:

the North Side of Chicago, for what that's worth.

 

Oh, that's right! The Blackhawks' and Bulls' nine recent championships are totally exclusive to the South side....

[Magnus]

Alls I'm saying is, the brightest spot in the Cubs' history in the last 30 years was having Wrigley Field play a part in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

[bosrs1]

On 6/20/2016 at 7:22 AM, zigzag said:

San Diego has lost 2 NBA teams since they started their drought, and it is one year longer of a drought than Cleveland's was.

 

Yep. It's San Diego without question. 53 years if you count an AFL championship, which many don't. No championships at all if you don't. 109 seasons of futility between MLB, NFL, and the NBA. And the loss of 2 NBA franchises in that time. No one has it worse sports wise. Why do you think San Diego embraced minor league hockey so well, they at least produced a playoff caliber product.

[AnPheitseog]

Given the popularity of the Bandits, I'm giving it to San Diego.

Not big four, but , still counts as success.

 

That, or i just have weird friends  

[Lights Out]

I'll be the buzzkill here: "curses" don't exist. They're just a lame excuse for a track record of poor ownership, poor management, poor coaching and poor play.

 

Now, if you're asking who the least fortunate sports city is, it's still clearly San Diego. That city has waited longer for a title than Cleveland did, goes into every season with one less chance at breaking the streak than Cleveland did by virtue of having one fewer team, and doesn't even get the sympathy from the average fan that Cleveland got because they're on the west coast and they have nice weather. San Diego is so overlooked that Rivers could pull a LeBron, shock the world and end their ringless streak, and the reaction would probably be a loud yawn and a "Yeah, that's nice" from the rest of the sports world.

 

Buffalo is up there, too.

[2001mark]

Toronto Argos have kept this city from the championship gutter.

[Cujo]

2 hours ago, Lights Out said:

I'll be the buzzkill here: "curses" don't exist. They're just a lame excuse for a track record of poor ownership, poor management, poor coaching and poor play.

 

I don't think anyone was confusing "cursed" for an actual vex. Nobody with a reasonable mind (so about half of us on here) buys into any of that. For the most part, we've all been able to grasp the topic as cities with the longest dry-spell.

[Unocal]

San Diego is an interesting one.

 

The nice weather and the lack of diehard fans doesn't give them Buffalo/Minneapolis vibes, but the Chargers have had some serious snakebitten history with some great teams (1979-1982 Air Coryell, 2004-2006-2009 LT/Gates/Rivers squads). (And yet go figure the 1994 team made the Super Bowl)

 

I mean, if Marlon McCree doesn't fumble that INT against the Patriots, Peyton Manning might have won 0 rings in Indy.

[CLEstones]

I think there needs to be some sort of criteria to quantify this.  There should be some empirical data based on how many professional teams are located in the city, how many semi-pro or minor league teams are located in the City.  Like, there needs to be a minimum of 2 professional teams and 1 minor league team to be in the discussion.

 

Or does it not matter... you just assign numerical values for every season without a championship, based on the pro teams.  Like San Diego would have X years but they only have 2 major teams... the Padres have never won in there history, so the Padres have a Curse rating of 47, but the Chargers have a Curse Rating of 53 since they last won the AFL Championship in 1963, give San Diego a cumulative Misery Rating of 100.  (This sounds like a spreadsheet I might be starting soon.  No one steal this please.  :P)

 

As opposed to Chicago who has 2 baseball teams, a football team, a hockey team, and a basketball team.  What is the proximity to determine if that team is from that City, i.e. New England Patriots and Boston.  Do state teams count... like does Golden State count for Oakland and San Francisco, both, the entire state?

 

You also need to determine which sports or leagues count towards the Curse Rating.  Some people legitimately believe Stipe Miocic broke the curse in Cleveland with his UFC title.  Some people believe the Lake Erie Monsters should count towards the curse.

[infrared41]

12 hours ago, Cujo said:

 

I don't think anyone was confusing "cursed" for an actual vex. Nobody with a reasonable mind (so about half of us on here) buys into any of that. For the most part, we've all been able to grasp the topic as cities with the longest dry-spell.

 

That's awfully generous, Curt. 

[2001mark]

Toronto Star did this yesterday, listed Cincinnati ahead of San Diego for #2.  

Reds winning a WS in '90 isn't enough of a drought vs a city without anything.  I think they reasoned the Bengals playoff futility.  

The 21st century Chargers might've looked more dominant, yet they never won their final game either.

[bosrs1]

1 hour ago, 2001mark said:

Toronto Star did this yesterday, listed Cincinnati ahead of San Diego for #2.  

Reds winning a WS in '90 isn't enough of a drought vs a city without anything.  I think they reasoned the Bengals playoff futility.  

The 21st century Chargers might've looked more dominant, yet they never won their final game either.

 

Yeah I don't see how a city with a WS win in the last 30 years tops a city that's never won anything despite having 4 (or 6 if you count the ABA Conquistadors and WHA Mariners) pro teams in the last half century or so and lost 2 (4) of those teams.

[tigerslionspistonshabs]

How is Minneapolis even mentioned? Two WS titles in the past 30 years. Sure their hockey team hasn't done much and the Vikings have never won, but there's 2 WS titles. No way they're in the discussion.

 

Same with Cincinnati. They won in 90 and then twice in the 70's, which isn't so recent, but still.. 3 in just over 40 years? No curse. That makes up for the Bengals constant failure to launch. 

 

If you're counting those two, Toronto's gotta be up there as well by the same logic, but can't be. 2 WS titles and several Grey Cups (if you count that). The Raptors are too new to hold it against them. The Maple Leafs, well...

 

But still, it's completely illogical to list a city that has actually won titles, no matter how far in the past (especially less than 30 years ago) before a team that has never won anything in more than 40+ years of their pro teams' existence. ie Nashville. 

 

For that reason, 

1. Buffalo- the tie breaker over any other city is the fact they went to 4 STRAIGHT SUPER BOWLS AND LOST. 

 

With all that being said, I still think Cleveland is cursed. The sports gods don't seem to like the city. The Browns for example. The original Browns left for Baltimore, won the SB within 4 years, were one of the best teams in football for the next 15 years and won another SB. The new team has been the definition of bad. 

[MJWalker45]

What about Houston? The Rockets won the NBA title in between Jordan's comeback #1 so people tend to place an asterisk on them. Other than that they haven't won the NBA title. And the current team will be slowly imploding over the next 2-3 years. The Astros made it to the World Series only to get swept and the Texans only just won their first division title. 

[Sport]

BTW, they're editing the end to "Believeland". Airing the new one on June 30th. 

[2001mark]

2 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:

What about Houston? The Rockets won the NBA title in between Jordan's comeback #1 so people tend to place an asterisk on them. 

No, those Rockets were very good, as was the Western Conference they went through both times... + back to back.

[Krz]

All of California's teams, not really its just san diego

[OnWis97]

http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/16472883/sports-misery-index-cleveland-passes-crown-most-tortured-fans-san-diego-buffalo

 

ESPN did a "Sports Misery Index"

[infrared41]

On 6/22/2016 at 9:41 AM, tigerslionspistonshabs said:

With all that being said, I still think Cleveland is cursed. The sports gods don't seem to like the city. The Browns for example. The original Browns left for Baltimore, won the SB within 4 years, were one of the best teams in football for the next 15 years and won another SB. The new team has been the definition of bad. 

 

A Detroit Lions fan talking about how cursed the Browns are? Pot, meet kettle. Call me crazy, but I think 0-16 is the "definition of bad." So is exactly one playoff game win since 1957. Three divisional titles in 60 years? Yeah, that's pretty bad too. Exactly one NFC Championship game appearance in 60 years? C'mon. The Lions are beyond "cursed", they're just plain old bad. And they've been bad for a lot longer than the Browns 2.0 have been bad. Again, call me crazy, but I'll take the Browns of the last 60 years over the Lions of the last 60 years every time. 

 

All that aside, if the "sports gods" don't like Cleveland, letting the Cavs come back from a 3-1 deficit to win the NBA title sure is a funny way of showing it. 

[BBTV]

1 hour ago, infrared41 said:

 

A Detroit Lions fan talking about how cursed the Browns are? Pot, meet kettle. Call me crazy, but I think 0-16 is the "definition of bad." So is exactly one playoff game win since 1957. Three divisional titles in 60 years? Yeah, that's pretty bad too. Exactly one NFC Championship game appearance in 60 years? C'mon. The Lions are beyond "cursed", they're just plain old bad. And they've been bad for a lot longer than the Browns 2.0 have been bad. Again, call me crazy, but I'll take the Browns of the last 60 years over the Lions of the last 60 years every time. 

 

All that aside, if the "sports gods" don't like Cleveland, letting the Cavs come back from a 3-1 deficit to win the NBA title sure is a funny way of showing it. 

 

My favorite Lions moment of futility was Lomas Brown laughing and saying " “There is no question in my mind that we’re going to win this game. It’s just a matter of how much we are going to win by.” before the 1995 Wild Card game against the Eagles.  How'd that work out?  The Eagles, lead by Rodney Peete were up by 51-7 at one point, winning 58-37 after putting Randall Cunningham and the backups in the game.

 

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/1995/dec/30/lions-guarantee-incites-the-eagles-lomas-brown/

 

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/199512300phi.htm