The Never-Won Club

Where I Drew the Line

To make a list like this you have to draw a line, so here is mine. A club is on the list if it has never won its league's modern championship: the Super Bowl, the NBA title, the World Series or the Stanley Cup, under the franchise history the league itself recognizes. Older titles from before the Super Bowl, the AFL and the ABA do not take a club off the list, but I note every one of them, because a Lions fan will tell you about 1957 and he is entitled to.

Seasons are counted from 1966 for NFL clubs that are older than the Super Bowl, from 1976-77 for the Pacers and Nets, who came over from the ABA, and from the first season for everyone else. Relocated clubs carry their history with them: the Brewers began as the 1969 Seattle Pilots, the Clippers as the Buffalo Braves and the Titans as the Houston Oilers.

The Waiting Room

This is the whole club, sorted by how many seasons each member has played without winning. The NFL dominates the top of the table because seven of its franchises have been around for every Super Bowl and have won none of them.

FINALS = RECORD IN THE LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES OR GAME. * PLAYING EACH OTHER IN THE 2026 WORLD SERIES.

Two things stand out. The first is how old the top of the list is: the Bills, Lions, Cardinals, Falcons, Vikings, Chargers and Titans have each sat through 60 Super Bowls. The second is that the youngest members are not really waiting yet. The Utah Mammoth have played two seasons and the Seattle Kraken five; nobody in Salt Lake City is losing sleep over it.

The Mariners deserve their own sentence. They are the only one of the 30 MLB franchises never to reach a World Series, and in 2025 they led Toronto 3-1 in the seventh inning of Game 7 of the ALCS before George Springer's three-run home run.

League by League

NFL: 12 of 32 Without a Super Bowl

Twelve of the 32 NFL franchises have never won a Super Bowl, the most of any league. Five of them have also never won any league title at all: the Bengals, Texans, Jaguars, Panthers and Falcons. The other seven all own older NFL or AFL championships. Most of those came before the Super Bowl existed; the Vikings won the last NFL title before the merger in 1969 and then lost Super Bowl IV. The Browns have four NFL titles and four more from the old AAFC.

The Texans are the only current franchise never to play in a conference championship game. The Lions and Browns have never reached the Super Bowl at all, despite 60 and 57 chances in the Super Bowl era.

NBA: 10 of 30 Without a Title

Ten of the 30 NBA franchises have never won the title. The Pacers and Nets both won ABA championships before the merger, three for Indiana and two for the Nets, but neither has won since joining the NBA in 1976.

The Suns have the longest wait in the league at 58 seasons and the most heartbreak: three Finals, all lost 4-2, including 2021 when they won the first two games against Milwaukee and then lost four straight. The Clippers have played 56 seasons, across Buffalo, San Diego and Los Angeles, and have reached one conference final.

MLB: 5 of 30 Without a World Series

Baseball has the shortest list. Only five of the 30 franchises have never won a World Series, and the 2026 Series guarantees that number drops to four. Whichever club loses it stays here.

The Brewers and Padres are the senior members at 58 seasons each, both born in the 1969 expansion. The Brewers' only previous World Series ended in Game 7 in 1982 after they led St. Louis three games to two.

NHL: 10 of 32 Without a Stanley Cup

Ten of the 32 NHL franchises have never won the Stanley Cup. Two of the cities carry older Cups that do not belong to the current clubs: the original Ottawa Senators, a different franchise that folded in the 1930s, and the Vancouver Millionaires, who won it in 1915. The original Winnipeg Jets won three WHA titles, but that franchise became the Arizona Coyotes, so none of it belongs to today's Jets.

Buffalo and Vancouver have both been waiting since 1970-71. The Canucks have lost three Finals, two of them in a seventh game. The Sabres have lost two, the second in 1999 to Brett Hull's triple-overtime goal, scored with a skate in the crease under a rule the league changed that summer.

SEMIS = RECORD IN CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP GAMES (NFL), CONFERENCE FINALS (NBA, NHL) OR LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES (MLB). NFL FROM 1970, NHL INCLUDING THE PRE-1982 SEMIFINAL ROUND.

The Near-Miss File

Waiting is one thing. Getting there and losing is another. This is every never-won club that has lost at least two finals in its league's championship series.

Numbers only tell part of it. These are the ten moments I think hurt the most.

The Title-Less Cities

Switch the unit from clubs to cities and the list changes shape. These are the metro areas with a team in one of the four leagues today that have never celebrated one of the four modern championships while a team was based there.

Buffalo is the one that always comes up, and it has a fair claim: two never-won clubs, four lost Super Bowls and two lost Stanley Cup Finals. But it is not alone. Charlotte, Nashville and Salt Lake City also have two current teams each and no modern title between them. No title-less city has three.

Three Canadian cities sit on the edge of the list. Ottawa, Vancouver and Winnipeg have never had a current club win the Stanley Cup, but all three won it long ago with teams that no longer exist: Ottawa's original Senators, most recently in 1927, the Vancouver Millionaires in 1915 and the Winnipeg Victorias around the turn of the 20th century. Whether those count is the kind of argument a hockey city has over a long winter. As a British Columbian I would like the Canucks to settle it.

The Odds of Getting Out

This is the part that matters if you bet. How often does a club that has never won actually win? I went through every champion in all four leagues since 1967 and flagged each first-time winner.

NFL FROM SUPER BOWL II. NBA AND NHL THROUGH 2026, MLB THROUGH 2025. THE 2026 WORLD SERIES WILL ADD A FIRST-TIME WINNER EITHER WAY.

Exactly one title in four since 1967, 59 of 236, has gone to a first-time winner, but the leagues are not the same. Baseball produces the fewest, the NFL the most, and the NBA and NHL sit in between. The rate has eased only a little since 2000, to 24 of 105, or about 23 per cent, even though most of the expansion clubs of the 1960s and 1970s have now had their turn. Baseball will add one more this month whatever happens.

What It Means for Bettors

One Last Word

Every club on this list will eventually come off it. The Texas Rangers did it in 2023 after more than 60 years, the Golden Knights in only their sixth season, and the Florida Panthers in 2024 after three decades. Whoever wins this World Series will be the next, and the rest of the club will be watching.

If you are a fan of one of these 37, I hope you get to see it. If you are betting on one of them, look at the price before you look at the history.