Charlotte is the saddest major sports city
Charlotte is the saddest major sports city
Unfortunately for me, a Charlotte resident, I have the cold hard data to prove it.
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I hate to admit this, but I live in sports hell right now. My humble city of residence, Charlotte, NC, is reaally going through it these days.
After an 0-2 start, the Carolina Panthers have benched their 2023 No. 1 overall pick Bryce Young. Considering all the assets they traded away to move up and select him, it’s an unmitigated disaster under owner Dave Tepper’s leadership. The Panthers were 2-15 last season and are on their way to missing the playoffs for the seventh straight season.
Over on the hardwood, the Charlotte Hornets were 21-61 last season and haven’t made the playoffs in EIGHT seasons. I’m cautiously optimistic that, in time, the new ownership/front office can pry the organization out of the NBA’s doldrums. But it’s pretty dire. The franchise left the Queen City in 2002, and hasn’t won a playoff series since.
The city’s third major pro sports team, Charlotte FC, is currently 10-8-11, as in 10 wins and 11 losses. Hey, one game way from .500! Throw the parade! The expansion club, which launched in 2022, made the playoffs in its second season in existence … with a record of 10 wins, 13 draws and 11 losses. If you think about it, by this city’s standards, that makes them the ‘27 Yankees. But still no winning soccer seasons yet.
So, yeah. Those are the three major sports teams in town. It’s not great.
There’s no MLB squad in North Carolina’s biggest metro area, but we DO have the Charlotte Knights, a Triple-A team with a beautiful Uptown ballpark. The Knights’ parent club? Of course: the Chicago White Sox, a team that is on pace to be the worst team in the modern era.
We can’t escape the mediocrity, the losses engulfing the city like kudzu. And it’s only deteriorated in recent years. It got me thinking this week:
Do I live in the saddest major sports city in America?
Only one way to find out.
It’s time to create a Major Sports City Power Rankings.
The Methodology of M.A.J.O.R.
To find out whether Charlotte is really that bad, I’m going to track every North American market that boasts at least three of the Big 5 pro sports teams (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL and MLS) in its metro area using this list. I recognize that I’m drawing a very Charlotte-biased line in the sand, but hey, this is my Substack. I wanna see how Charlotte stacks up against other major US cities.
Using this rubric, we are left with 25 metro areas, which I’ll call the Big 25: NYC, LA, Washington-Baltimore, Chicago, Bay Area, Boston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Miami-FLL, Philly, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Denver, Detroit, Toronto, Houston, Atlanta, Seattle, Phoenix, Tampa, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Charlotte, St. Louis, Kansas City, Cincinnati and Nashville.
With the Big 25 selected, I set out to create my three-pronged metric called … drum roll please … M.A.J.O.R. (Metro Analytical Judgment of Record). It builds on three categories:
Regular-season win percentage
Playoff Percentage (Playoff Appearances/Regular Season)
Title Percentage (Titles won/regular Season)
Don’t care how I handled these numbers? Feel free to scroll down to the rankings. I won’t blame you.
But here’s a peek under the hood. Within those three categories, I looked at three time periods for a blended score: last season, last three seasons and last 10 seasons. Why a blend? I wanted to capture recent vibes without going too overboard. The feeling at The Finder HQ was that more recent playoff appearances and titles currently resonate more with fanbases than runs that were, say, 10 years ago.
For example, I get the sense that South Florida is riding high these days thanks to the Florida Panthers winning the Stanley Cup over the summer. But is Philly still feeling all warm inside after winning the Super Bowl back in 2017, the city’s lone title in the last 10 years?
You might want a longer lens, but I figured that any sunny glow or nasty stink from from over a decade ago has probably worn off by now. Like, doesn’t the Detroit Pistons title in 2004 feel like three lifetimes ago? Hence, I landed at 10 seasons. By weighting those three time periods (Last 10, Last 3, Last 1) equally, I’m assigning equal importance to each span. Your mileage may vary, but I found that to be more relevant to how fanbases are feeling right now.
In addition , I tracked each metro areas playoff percentage and title percentage across those same three time periods. How many times did your city make the playoffs in the last 10 years and how many opportunities (regular seasons) did they have? The last 3 years? Last year? Same goes for titles.
After researching those three categories — regular season performance, postseason appearances and championships — I calculated a weighted composite of each metro area’s percentile ranking within each category.
Given that fanbases tend to appreciate titles more than regular season or simply punching their ticket to the playoffs (hello, Sixers fans!), I gave titles a 50% weight with lesser oomph allocated to regular season (25%) and playoff percentage (25%).
Again, your personal dials may be turned a little differently. Reasonable minds can disagree on those weights. But I liked the simplicity of 50/25/25 and feel that it’s reflective of the general fandom vibe I’ve gotten covering sports for two decades.
I made a point to keep things exclusively to the playing field. Other rankings like the old ESPN Ultimate Standings have incorporated metrics like ticket affordability and fan relations, but that opens up a whole ‘nother can of worms. For this study, I’m sticking to wins and losses. Simple enough.
Another thing of note: a metro area only gets credit for team performance in their city. For example, the Los Angeles Chargers aren’t benefiting from the San Diego Chargers going 9-7 in 2014. On the flip side, the Bay Area DOES receive credit for the Oakland Raiders making the playoffs in 2016 but nothing after they moved to Vegas in 2020. (I’m overlooking COVID relocations like the NBA Bubble or the Buffalo/Florida Blue Jays here).
One last thing: in order to not overweight MLB which has 162 games compared to NFL’s 17-game season, I’m weighting each league’s win percentage independently as opposed to simply adding up all the wins and losses across the leagues. Make sense? Cool.
Alright, soo …. where does Charlotte rank? And which market reigns supreme in the ever-so-scientific M.A.J.O.R metric? Where does your city rank? And your enemy’s city?
In today’s post, Part I, I’m going to reveal the bottom five for free.
Part II will unveil the entire list and will run separately for paid subscribers. So sit tight and become a paid subscriber if you haven’t already.
Without further ado, 21st thru 25th in M.A.J.O.R power rankings.
The Bottom 5 in M.A.J.O.R.
21. Cincinnati
Teams: 3 — Bengals (NFL), Reds (MLB), FC Cincinnati (MLS)
Titles Last 10 Seasons: 0
Regular Season Score: 52.8 (13th of 25)
Playoff Score: 22.2 (21st)
Title Score: 0.0 (tied for 20th)
M.A.J.O.R. metric: 18.7
FC Cincinnati is trying its best to pull Cincinnati out of mediocrity. They finished with the best MLS record in 2023 but fell int he Conference Finals to the eventual champion Columbus Crew. Outside of that, the Bengals and Reds are struggling to find their footing.
Despite a solid regular-season record of .524, Cincinnati has to overcome a dreadful postseason appearance ledger of just 7 appearances in 25 opportunities over the last decade. The Reds have punched their postseason ticket just once in the last 10 years … and it got swept in the NLWC. The baseball club hasn’t won a series since Ron Gant was patrolling left field (remember that?) in 1995. The Bengals, who have started out 0-2, aren’t spiraling after a 2021 Super Bowl appearance. Luckily for Cincy fans, the lows haven’t been as low as the ones below.
22. Phoenix
Teams: 4* — Cardinals (NFL), Suns (NBA), Diamondbacks (MLB), Coyotes* (NHL, defunct)
Titles Last 10 Seasons: 0
Regular Season Score: 26.3 (20th of 25)
Playoff Score: 27.8 (20th)
Title Score: 0.0 (tied for 20th)
M.A.J.O.R. metric: 13.5
The Phoenix area has come oh-so-close to winning titles recently. The 2023 Dbacks lost in the World Series and the 2021 Suns were up 2-0 in the NBA Finals. If my metric valued deep playoff runs, they’d probably rank a bit higher.
But still, a big fat zero in the titles column over the last 10 seasons definitely hurts. So does losing its NHL team because of profound local apathy. So does losing its NBA owner due to widespread harassment allegations. So does watching its No. 1 overall pick QB tear his ACL. As a result, despite some strong Suns years in the Devin Booker era, the city’s composite regular-season win percentage stands at just .470.
It’s been a rough go lately, but it could be worse. Speaking of worse …
23. Chicago
Teams: 6 — Bears (NFL), Bulls (NBA), Cubs (MLB), White Sox (MLB), Blackhawks (NHL), Fire (MLS)
Titles Last 10 Seasons: 2 — Cubs 2016, Blackhawks 2015
Regular Season Score: 8.3 (24th of 25)
Playoff Score: 6.9 (24th)
Title Score: 15.3 (tied for 16th)
M.A.J.O.R. metric: 11.4
The Chicago Cubs winning the 2016 World Series only counts for one (1) championship in my system, but perhaps it should count for a thousand, given the whole Curse of the Billy Goat thing. Maybe then Chicago sports would have a respectable score here. But alas. It’s ugly.
The White Sox may be the worst baseball team ever assembled. The Bulls have fallen flat on their face after the Tom Thibodeau era. The Bears are the Bears. The Blackhawks haven’t been good in years. Good lord, it’s been brutal in the Windy City. Over the last three seasons, Chicago pro teams have a collectively .392 win percentage, second-lowest among the Big 25.
I knew they’ve been down on their luck but having only 17 postseasons in the past decade in 60 opportunities (28 percent) across six major pro sports teams cuts deep. By comparison, it’s the same number of postseason appearances as the city of Pittsburgh over the same time — with half the teams. In the last three years, Chicago’s playoff percentage is 11 percent. Last year, zero percent. Godspeed, Caleb Williams.
24. Detroit
Teams: 4 — Lions (NFL), Pistons (NBA), Tigers (MLB), Red Wings (NHL)
Titles Last 10 Seasons: 0
Regular Season Score: 16.7 (23rd)
Playoff Score: 1.4 (25th)
Title Score: 0.0 (tied for 20th)
M.A.J.O.R. metric: 4.5
When the Detroit Lions — THE DETROIT LIONS — are the crown jewel of the city, it’s maybe not the best sign. Across the four teams, Detroit boasts just eight postseason appearances in the last 10 seasons, an absolutely pitiful amount. The city’s postseason percentage over the last decade, just 20 percent, ranks dead last in the entire study. Toronto — with the same number of teams — has 25 postseasons under its belt over the same time period.
Unlike Charlotte, things do seem to be trending in the right direction. The Lions seemed to have struck gold with Dan Campbell. The Tigers should punch their first postseason ticket since 2014 and the Red Wings are hovering around .500 lately. The Pistons? Let’s just move on.
25. Charlotte
Teams: 3 — Panthers (NFL), Hornets (NBA), Charlotte FC (MLS)
Titles Last 10 Seasons: 0
Regular Season Score: 1.4 (25th)
Playoff Score: 9.7 (23rd)
Title Score: 0.0 (tied for 20th)
M.A.J.O.R. metric: 2.8
I won’t regurgitate what I’ve already said at the top, but here are some other facts to underline the futility. The city’s sports went .287 last season.
Over the past decade, 22 full regular seasons have been played by the Panthers, Hornets and Charlotte FC organizations combined. Eighteen of them have finished with losing records. That’s just four winning seasons out of 22. And five playoffs out of 22 opportunities. Outside of the Panthers run in Super Bowl 50 which honestly feels like a century ago, the city has basically forgotten what it’s like to have a fun postseason run. I mean, the Hornets haven’t reached the Conference Finals ONCE in its 35-year history.
The other day I realized something. My daughter was born in Charlotte seven years ago and the city has not won a playoff round in her lifetime. As sad as that is, the same would be true if she was born eight years ago. As it looks right now, it may take another eight years for something really cool to cheer about. I pray that I’m wrong. Until then, it’s all of the sads.
Coming soon… the entire MAJOR rankings in Part II. Sit tight.