Top 25 most miserable franchises
Here are the top 25 most miserable professional franchises to be a fan of, with teams 26-123 at the bottom of the article.
We also broke out the rankings -- which include the four major U.S. pro leagues -- by sport: NFL | MLB | NBA | NHL
Positive points mean higher misery, while negative points mean less, just like golf. (Full explanation of the formula can be found in the box below).
1. Sacramento Kings, 27.1 points
Sports Misery Index Formula
The five primary factors in the Fan Misery Index formula:
1. Championships: The more (and more recently) you win championships, the less you have to complain about. However, if your most recent championship was 25-plus years ago, it's almost as if you've never won at all.
2. Playoff berths: How are you going to win a championship if you don't make the playoffs? It's bad enough to not hoist the big trophy at the end of the year, but not even putting yourself in the postseason is cause for a venting session or 10. We won't tolerate too much bellyaching from teams that are always in the postseason.
3. Playoff wins: Great, you're in the playoffs, but what's the point if you don't do anything once you're there? Seeing your team go one-and-done in the postseason is quite painful, almost as bad as not going in the first place. But if you win playoff games every year, you have less reason to complain.
4. Heartbreaks: It's one thing to lose -- it's another to get your heart ripped out of your chest "Temple of Doom" style. Whether it's blowing a big lead, losing a Game 7, losing at the last second or simply losing a title game, it's OK to be miserable. However, some winning teams scored high in this metric because you're going to have more "bad beats" the more you play at the final table.
5. Rival comparison: Having your team stink and break your heart is bad enough, but having the fans of the teams you hate celebrating championships and playoff wins is salt in the wound.
Note that this formula takes into account the recency factor: Winning a championship in the past five years does not allow you to be miserable, nor does anyone care about some heartbreak that happened 30-40 years ago (cough, Bill Buckner, cough). Stuff that happened last season is factored more than stuff that happened 2-5 years ago, which means more than stuff 6-10 years ago, which means more than stuff 11-20 years ago, which means more than ... you get the picture.
Significant relocations are also downplayed. For example, an Indianapolis Colts fan should not bellyache about the heartbreaks of the Colts in Baltimore, and a Los Angeles Rams fan does not get to strut his stuff about what "The Greatest Show on Turf" did in St. Louis. The Los Angeles Chargers get to own San Diego's misery because (a) L.A. and San Diego are quite close and (b) I'm pretty sure most of the Chargers' fans still live in San Diego. Also, Houston Texans fans don't get to complain about the Houston Oilers, but we'll allow new Winnipeg Jets fans to complain about the old Winnipeg Jets.
2. San Diego Padres, 24.61
It's hard to be miserable living in San Diego, but being a Padres fan is a thankless endeavor. The Padres, who have lurked near the bottom of the National League all year, haven't had a winning season since 2010, haven't made the playoffs since 2006 (though they did lose a one-game playoff to the Rockies in 2007) and haven't won a playoff series since 1998, a year no one under the age of 25 remembers.
The Padres have made the World Series twice, having been swept by the Yankees in 1998 and winning one game against the Tigers in 1984. Otherwise, it's been 50 seasons of mostly terrible baseball, all while watching the Dodgers make the playoffs constantly and the Giants win three World Series championships since 2010. Even the Diamondbacks have won a World Series. But hey, at least you have the cool brown-and-yellow throwbacks!
3. Cleveland Browns, 23.46
Going 0-16 is the least of the Browns' problems, which is why they're the top NFL team on this list. The Browns have the NFL's longest playoff drought, having last gone in 2002. They've been to the postseason only once in the 19 seasons since the franchise was restarted, haven't won a playoff game since 1994 and haven't won an NFL championship since 1964.
While all this losing is going on, the Steelers are a perennial playoff team who have won two Super Bowls since 2005 and the Ravens have won two Super Bowls since 2000 (including one with the framework of the old Browns). So how aren't the Browns the most miserable? Their '80s heartbreaks ("Red Right 88," "The Drive," "The Fumble"
don't really register to the modern fan. So yes, the Browns aren't even the best at being the worst.
4. Florida Panthers, 23.17
The first memory of the Panthers in the NHL was their fans throwing thousands of plastic rats onto the ice in 1996 as the third-year franchise made an unlikely run to the Stanley Cup Finals. Problem is the first memory is the only real positive one for the South Florida franchise and is the only season it has won a playoff series. If you're under 30 years old, you're used to seeing the Panthers lose over and over.
Since being swept by the Avalanche in '96, the Panthers have not only not won a playoff series, but they've made it to the playoffs only four times. Meanwhile, the cross-state Lightning have a Stanley Cup and are a perennial playoff team. South Florida is nice in the winter, but imagine how much better it would be if the local hockey team wasn't so miserable?
5. Buffalo Bills, 22.69
The fact that the Bills are this high despite making the playoffs last season shows just how miserable it has been in Buffalo. Before last season's wild-card loss to the Jaguars, the previous time the Bills had made the playoffs was 1999, the longest streak in the NFL prior to last season. And what happened when the Bills made the playoffs in '99? A little trick play called the "Music City Miracle."
Buffalo has not won a playoff game since 1995, the fourth-longest streak in the NFL. And when the Bills did win playoff games in the early 1990s, they lost in the Super Bowl four consecutive years (including once on a last-second missed field goal) and saw a 30 for 30 piece crafted to account for that misery. And, oh yeah, they've had to watch the rival Patriots win constantly for nearly 20 years.
http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/24367000/the-top-25-most-miserable-fan-bases-professional-sports
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