This got us to thinking about other sad-sack teams that have been around awhile. Here, then, is the list of franchises that have been around the longest without winning a championship. For our purposes, we’re excluding long-existing teams such as the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals or Detroit Lions, who have never won a Super Bowl but won NFL championships before the Super Bowl was created. Likewise, the Buffalo Bills, Los Angeles/San Diego Chargers and Tennessee Titans/Houston Oilers won AFL championships before the AFL-NFL merger. In the NBA, the Brooklyn Nets and Indiana Pacers won ABA titles before joining the NBA.
Minnesota Vikings (1961)
The Vikings have won 54.2 percent of their games over their history. They have made the playoffs 29 times since the NFL and AFL merged to become one league in 1970, third-most behind the Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers. They’ve been to the NFC championship game nine times and the Super Bowl four times. They’re one of only seven NFL teams to win 15 games in one regular season. And yes, technically they have won an NFL championship, in 1969. But Minnesota went on to lose to the AFL’s Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl IV. That season did not end in champagne showers.
Most NFL teams should be envious of the Vikings’ sustained success, yet most are probably glad not to have lived through Minnesota’s perennial winters of discontent.
THE MISSED CHANCE: In 1998, the Vikings went 15-1 during the regular season and averaged 34.8 points per game, the most by an NFL team in 48 years. After clobbering the Cardinals in the division round, Minnesota was an 11-point favorite to beat the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC championship game. But given the chance to take what likely would have been an insurmountable 10-point lead late in the fourth quarter, Gary Anderson’s 38-yard field goal attempt went wide left. It was his only missed kick of the season out of 107 field goal and extra-point attempts, and the Falcons would follow with a late touchdown to force overtime, where they won it on a field goal of their own.
Phoenix Suns (1968)
The expansion Suns were a winning franchise by their third season of existence and scored an improbable trip to the NBA Finals in just their eighth, but they’ve returned there only twice since as they’ve cycled through periods of boom (in the 22 seasons between 1988 and 2010, they made the playoffs 19 times) and bust (their 10-season playoff drought that followed that run).
Phoenix’s .536 all-time winning percentage ranks fifth among NBA franchises, and only the Utah Jazz has a better winning percentage among teams that have never won an NBA title.
THE MISSED CHANCE: The 1975-76 Suns finished the regular season only two games above .500 but defeated the Seattle SuperSonics in six games and then upset the Golden State Warriors — who had won an NBA-best 59 regular season games — to advance to face the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals. The series was tied at two games apiece when the teams returned to Boston for Game 5, a triple-overtime classic that featured perhaps the most absurd 19-second span in NBA history. The Celtics won, 128-126, and would finish off the series two days later in Phoenix. The Suns wouldn’t return to the finals for another 17 years.
San Diego Padres and Milwaukee Brewers (1969)
The Padres and the Brewers (then known as the Seattle Pilots) were two of four MLB expansion teams in 1969. The other two (the Kansas City Royals and the Montreal Expos, who became the Washington Nationals) have won World Series titles. San Diego and Milwaukee have not.
Both San Diego and Milwaukee have had their chances of late. The Padres advanced to the National League Championship Series in 2022 before losing in five games to the Philadelphia Phillies, then had the third-highest payroll in baseball this past season before flaming out and missing the postseason entirely (it’s since come out that the small-market franchise needed to take out a $50 million loan to cover expenses, including player payroll). The Brewers have made the postseason in five of the past six seasons but have won only one playoff series over that span, in 2018.
THE MISSED CHANCE: Of the teams’ combined three World Series appearances, the Brewers’ 1982 loss to the Cardinals was the closest either have gotten to glory (the Padres have won only one out of nine World Series games against two of the best teams of all time, the 1984 Detroit Tigers and 1998 New York Yankees). After eking into an AL East crown with a win over the Baltimore Orioles on the final day of the regular season, the Brewers won the deciding Game 5 of the American League Championship Series in dramatic fashion, overcoming a 3-2 deficit to the California Angles in the seventh inning. They then pounded the St. Louis Cardinals, 10-0, in Game 1 of the World Series and had a chance to wrap up the championship in Game 6. But the Cardinals won in a 13-1 rout, then closed out the series the next night in a 6-3 win.
Buffalo Sabres and Vancouver Canucks, 1971
Though the Sabres and Canucks don’t have the dubious honor of having the longest Stanley Cup drought — take a bow, Toronto — they’re the two NHL teams that have been around the longest without ever winning it all.
Though the franchises have combined to reach the Stanley Cup finals five times, neither has been much of a factor in recent years. The Sabres have not made the playoffs since 2011 and have not won a playoff series since 2007. Since their loss in the 2011 Stanley Cup finals, the Canucks have missed the playoffs in 9 of 13 seasons, and their only two series wins came in the 2020 pandemic playoffs.
THE MISSED CHANCE: Two of Vancouver’s three Stanley Cup finals appearances went to seven games, so it’s tough to pick one of them. I’ll go with the 1993-94 team that overcame a 3-1 series deficit to Calgary in the first round and then scored consecutive five-game series wins over the Stars and Maple Leafs before facing the New York Rangers — a team looking to end misery of its own — in the Stanley Cup finals.
Once again, Vancouver faced a 3-1 deficit, and once again, the Canucks came back, winning Games 5 and 6 by a combined 10-4. But the Rangers jumped out to leads of 2-0 and 3-1 in the deciding Game 7 and held on over a tense final period to win their first Stanley Cup since 1940.
FC Dallas/New England Revolution/New York Red Bulls (1996)
Of the 10 teams to take part in Major League Soccer’s inaugural 1996 season, four have never won the MLS Cup. One of them (the Tampa Bay Mutiny) folded before the 2002 season. The three listed above still are looking for their first championship.
Between 2002 and 2010, either FC Dallas, New England or New York appeared in the MLS Cup final six times. None of them won, and only the Revolution has been back since (in 2014).
THE MISSED CHANCE: In 2006, the Revolution appeared in its second of three straight MLS Cup finals. After a scoreless 90 minutes against the Houston Dynamo, the two teams traded goals about a minute apart in extra time, with Taylor Twellman scoring for New England and Brian Ching scoring for Houston. In the penalty shootout that followed, Dynamo goalkeeper Pat Onstad smothered Revolution defender Jay Heaps’s attempt in the fifth round to give Houston its first MLS Cup and extend New England’s misery.
New York Liberty (1997)
The Liberty is the only one of the WNBA’s existing original franchises without a championship, though it’s not for a lack of trying: New York has lost in the WNBA finals five times, including this season’s four-game loss to the Las Vegas Aces in their first appearance in 21 years.
The Liberty reached the finals in four of its first six years of existence but came up short each time. It’s only missed the playoffs nine times in the WNBA’s 27-season existence.
THE MISSED CHANCE: Game 2 of the 1999 WNBA finals between the Liberty and the Houston Comets featured one of the more memorable shots in league history, when New York’s Teresa Weatherspoon banked in a half-court buzzer-beater amid prematurely falling confetti in Houston to give the Liberty a 68-67 win and force a Game 3. Houston dominated the deciding game and won by 12, however.