OT-10 Worst sports franchises in our generation
Someone at another sports blog put together a list of the 10 worst sports franchises in our generation based on win percentage. The details are here.
For the lazy:
10. Tampa Bay Rays (.439 win pct.)
9. Cincinatti Bengals (.422 win pct.)
8. Toronto Raptors (.411 win pct.)
7. Minnesota Timberwolves (.407 win pct.)
6. Charlotte Bobcats (.384 win pct.)
5. Houston Texans (.382 win pct.)
4. Arizona Cardinals (.380 win pct.)
3. Detroit Lions (.380 win pct.)
2. Los Angeles Clippers (.346 win pct.)
1. Memphis Grizzlies (.342 win pct.)
They are all pretty poorly run organizations so no real suprises. Thoughts?
February 21st, 2011 at 6:07 PM ^
If this were 2009 the Blackhawks would be right up there too.
Edit- No they wouldn't, didn't realize this was just a straight list of worst winning percentages.
February 21st, 2011 at 9:54 PM ^
quick question how isn't there a cleveland team on this list. I'm an indians fan and its been painful, I know the browns and pre and post LBJ cavs have been terrible also.
February 21st, 2011 at 10:14 PM ^
February 22nd, 2011 at 2:29 PM ^
Nate Thurmond, Austin Carr and the miracle at Richfield before the Price, Harper, Daugherty years. The Cavs also had 5/6 winning seasons when Mike Fratello coached, and even went to the playoffs with Shawn Kemp.
The Tribe absolutely were abysmal in the 70's and 80's, why do you think the movie Major League was even made? It's the reason Dime Beer Night existed.
Automatic Otto Graham went to 10 championship games in a row and won 7 of them. The Browns were once a proud franchise in the 40's, 50's, 60's, the early 70's and then re-emerging in 79 with Sipe and the Kardiac Kids. As a die hard Cleveland fan, that was a long time ago, and we'll be lucky if any of the 3 franchises get above .500 in the next 5 years.
February 22nd, 2011 at 2:40 PM ^
atleast the lake erie monsters could be relievant.. and above .500.. yay AHL hockey, is it sad they have 19 more wins then the cavs and they have existed for 4 years
February 21st, 2011 at 6:01 PM ^
The rays won the AL Pennant in 2008 and won their division in 2008 and 2010. They might have an overall crappy record, but they have been winning lately.
February 21st, 2011 at 7:18 PM ^
SEC LOGIC!
February 21st, 2011 at 9:16 PM ^
the Tigers choked away a playoff spot like Cabrera choking down beers...
The Tigers have way too much talent to underachive Leyland has got to fire them up or go.
February 22nd, 2011 at 7:00 AM ^
February 21st, 2011 at 8:18 PM ^
And helping their case is the fact that they share that division with the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, two of the most dominant baseball teams (with the Cardinals) of this generation.
February 21st, 2011 at 9:41 PM ^
I was surprised to see the Cardinals at #4, they were just in the Super Bowl two years ago, but I guess when you look at the franchise as a whole they have been terrible. When they signed Warner he turned them around almost instantly, now they just need to find another QB. I hate to see former players on bad teams.
February 21st, 2011 at 6:05 PM ^
And the Lions are coming back, damnit. THE CORNER HAS FINALLY BEEN TURNED... hopefully.
February 21st, 2011 at 7:37 PM ^
last decade to the best franchise this decade. IT'S GONNA HAPPEN!!!!!!!
February 21st, 2011 at 7:50 PM ^
LIONS SUPER BOWL!!!
February 21st, 2011 at 8:25 PM ^
if the Lions actually won the Super Bowl? This is bigger than the Tigers, Wings and Pistons winning the championship combined.
Want people to come to Ford Field to watch the Lions game? Just win, that's all you have to do is just win and they will come. You can see the sellout at Ford Field during the 4 game winning streak to end the season.
February 21st, 2011 at 9:10 PM ^
Lions will never win as long as Ford owns them.
Ford keeps hiring bozo staff that might be good for running a 3rd shift paint line at a factory, but not motivating millionare football players.
February 21st, 2011 at 10:06 PM ^
you haven't been paying attention to this year Lions team. They finally have the right staff in place for a run to the Super Bowl for the next few years. The Lions aren't that far from being a Super Bowl contender. Martin Mayhew deserve credit for overhauling roster into a team that can contend for playoff next season as well as Super Bowl for years to come. Jim Schwartz is an up and coming coach whom the players loved to play for. Schwartz did a great job of hiring Scott Linehan and Gunther Cunningham to be the OC and DC for the team. Schwartz knew that he doesn't have head coaching experience and hired two former HC in his staff. It would have been easy for Linehan and Cunningham to undercut Schwartz's authority, but they didn't and they made it work.
The Lions have drafted well under Mayhew. They landed Matt Stafford, Jahvid Best, Ndamukong Suh, Louis Delmas, Brandon Pettigrew, DeAndre Levy and Sammie Lee Hill. All are young core/nucleus that can grow together. Throw in outstanding trades for Chris Houston, Alphonso Smith, Rob Sims, Tony Scheffler and to name a few. You have a team, not only are competitive but is built for a dynasty. The Lions are an off-season away(hopefully there's FA market when CBA is signed) from being a true Super Bowl contender IMO. The Lions are 6-10 and they have won 5 games with a backup QB and 3rd string QB starting for them. They beat the Super Bowl Champion with Drew Stanton starting at QB.
You're just being overly pesmisstic and mis-informed about the current team and staff. The future is bright for the Lions.
February 22nd, 2011 at 1:03 AM ^
you make many good points sir, however i still adamantly refuse to credit ford for the turnaround. it's at times like these that i am reminded of blind squirrels and nuts...
maybe when mulally is done in dearborn he can turn his attention to allen park.
February 22nd, 2011 at 9:48 AM ^
You have a team, not only are competitive but is built for a dynasty.lol
February 21st, 2011 at 6:10 PM ^
Have been to a Super Bowl releatively recently as well.........
February 21st, 2011 at 6:11 PM ^
Other than the clippers (who have an owner who talks smack to his own players!) and the lions (who has an owner who probably talks smack to his manbits) these are all small market teams. money talks folks.
February 21st, 2011 at 6:26 PM ^
Houston, Toronto, Phoenix, and Minny are not small markets.
February 21st, 2011 at 7:10 PM ^
...Houston and Phoenix -- the 4th and 5th most populated cities in the US. Toronto is also bigger than Houston.
You could test they hypothesis that it's easier to run a shitty franchise in a larger market, because regardless of quality you have a large enough population to support the ineptitude. Would Detroit Lions football survive the 80s, 90s, and 00s if it were in St. Louis?
February 21st, 2011 at 9:38 PM ^
It's football, so, probably. The Bucs did fuck-all in Tampa for almost 30 years and did alright. Besides, the Rams moving from LA to St. Louis proved that it's not usually about market or fan support, it's about whether the stadium has luxury boxes.
February 21st, 2011 at 9:40 PM ^
In fairness, the Lions made the playoffs 6 times from 1991-1999. Of course, they only won 1 playoff game in those 6 appearances. But still, frequent playoff appearances were a big improvement after the years 1958-1990, when they made 3 appearances over the course of the entire period..
February 21st, 2011 at 6:15 PM ^
You have to look past winning percentages when you make a list like this. We all know how hard it is to win in the NFL, you can't expect much from expansion teams like the texans who started in 2002 to win quickly. The same can be said for the bobcats, who have only been playing in the NBA for 7 years. That doesn't make them a bad franchise.
EDIT: did not read the artice, so I didn't realize it was based only on winning percentage.
February 21st, 2011 at 6:15 PM ^
Link?
February 21st, 2011 at 6:17 PM ^
Click on the word "here".
February 21st, 2011 at 6:31 PM ^
Thanks, missed it.
February 21st, 2011 at 6:44 PM ^
Seems like there have been more and more embedded links now and it's easy to miss them. This can be remedied by just underlining the embedded link so it will stand out when people read it. Just a thought.
February 21st, 2011 at 7:07 PM ^
The blue used for links is definitely close to black on computers, so it is easy to miss. It would be nice for the links to be underlined to emphasize it.
February 21st, 2011 at 6:26 PM ^
for (I=0; I<100; I++) {printf ("the Clippers\n");
February 22nd, 2011 at 1:07 AM ^
-3 Missing closing brace
-1 Variable names should be lower case
Total: 26/30
Whoops, sorry, I've been grading programs all day today.
February 21st, 2011 at 6:28 PM ^
.....but a few of these teams have met with recent - if sporadic - success. It's interesting to see these lists every so often just so you can find teams that have fallen from grace or have simply been consistently awful based on the record.
As for the Lions specifically, I sincerely hope they've finally found the final corner to turn before better times. I will reserve playoff talk for now, but I see good things there, and I hope in several years they are excluded from this listing.
February 21st, 2011 at 6:31 PM ^
You're crazy.
February 21st, 2011 at 6:44 PM ^
.....but it has gotten me this far in life.
February 21st, 2011 at 6:30 PM ^
This list fails to account for the parity in Major League Baseball. Winning percentages of the best and worst in baseball tend to be a lot closer to .500 than those in the NFL or NBA. Hence the reason that the list only includes 1 MLB team. If you really wanted to compile a list of the worst franchises among the major sports leagues (minus the NHL), you'd look at how many standard deviations below .500 these teams are or something.
February 21st, 2011 at 6:36 PM ^
I think there would have to be a large number of factors included. If a team is losing and can still sell out its stadium, I don't think of it as a terrible franchise, it's just currently a shitty team. If a team hasn't made the playoffs in X years, can only fill up 10% of it's stadium, won't spend money on game-changing players, and doesn't lower ticket prices accordingly.. it's probably a shitty franchise.
February 21st, 2011 at 6:39 PM ^
You mean like...?
February 21st, 2011 at 6:47 PM ^
I have managed tickets to Wrigley Field a few times and have seen the Cubs go down on each occasion. The place does sell itself because it hasn't been torn down and rebuilt across the street, I will say at least that.
February 21st, 2011 at 6:49 PM ^
Agreed. It's not even just selling out though. Growing up in Illinois I had many, many friends who were Cubs fans because it's "cool". No idea how it's still cool after so many years.
February 21st, 2011 at 6:59 PM ^
Wrigley has a prestige that few stadiums can match.
February 21st, 2011 at 7:04 PM ^
It does, but the Cubs also have an enormous fanbase, some of which have never made it to Wrigley. That's actually what a lot of people blame their failures on the field for, with this logic:
Stadium=sellout, TV ratings=high. Why spend more on a championship caliber team?
Kinda makes sense, but then I'm not a baseball fan so all I know is what I hear.
February 21st, 2011 at 8:06 PM ^
The team spends a ton of money, the cubs are third in the leauge in payroll. Theres a few reasons we can't win, spending is one of the reasons. We built that great team two years ago with huge contracts, big z, aramis, fukodome, derek lee, soriano, and when they played bad we couldn't get rid of them. Also lou could not manage in the playoffs. Blame jim hendry the GM.
10 years ago we didn't sell seats. They tried to win without spending, the problem was the scouts didn't find one player who could contibute at the big league level. The head scout, jim hendry. It's what ive been saying for years when people complain about the yankees spending. Spending alone doesn't win games, you have to know how to do it and the cubs don't.
February 21st, 2011 at 8:45 PM ^
February 21st, 2011 at 9:26 PM ^
Also, I don't understand your point at all.
February 22nd, 2011 at 12:01 PM ^
The Cubs have an enormous fanbase because of WGN. In the early days of cable (early 80s), just about every Cub game was on WGN and Harry Carey was the announcer. The Cubs had great exposure throughout the country. I became a Cubs fan for those reasons and there is no better stadium experience than a game at Wrigley.
February 21st, 2011 at 8:09 PM ^
The only difference between the Cubs and the Tigers is that Wrigley sells out and the party after the game.
February 21st, 2011 at 9:49 PM ^
And World Series championships.
February 21st, 2011 at 7:39 PM ^
MLB has 162 games which reduces the variance of winning percentage from the best team to the worst team as opposed to the NFL's 16 games schedule where there's a greater variance in winning percentage.