I remember in the late 1970’s or so, the Oakland Raiders would always boast about having the best record of any team in any pro sport.
Is this still true? If not, who is it now?
What if the inquiry is limited to NFL teams? Is there a ranking somewhere of best cumulative record? I Googled to no avail.
It depends how you define “best record”, I suppose. Real Madrid won the European Cup 5 times in a row ending in 1960 and then won the Spanish league 8 of the next 9 years, so they must have had a pretty good record even before the Raiders’ claim.
It’s not true now, though it may have been at one point. Here’s a pdf from the Pro Football Hall of Fame with franchise records. The Miami Dolphins are first with an overall winning percentage (including playoffs) of 0.603 (359-236-4). The Oakland Raiders are second with a winning percentage of 0.599 (406-270-11). Believe it or not, the Cleveland Browns are third, barely edging out the San Francisco 49ers (0.5777 to 0.5775).
I didn’t find list of the other major sports, but the New York Yankees overall record is 8916-6846, giving them a winning percentage of 0.566.
The St-George Dragons won 11 Rugby League premierships in a row between 1956-66 in Australia. They ended up changing the rules of the game by removing the ‘unlimited tackle’ rule.
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As a Yank who took up playing rugby league a couple years ago, I’m curious to learn more about the sport’s history. How exactly did the unlimited tackle rule benefit the Dragons so much?
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It’s hard to compare one sport to another, especially in winning percentages. A spectacular year for a baseball team, say 105-57 would translate percentage-wise to about 53 wins for a basketball team - good, but nothing special. And the Chicago Bulls’ run of 72-10 (.878, which no baseball team will ever touch) is ‘beaten’ by any football team that can win 14 games, which one team will do every few years. And football is the only sport where going unbeaten is even a remote possibility.
Certainly of the American sports (I doubt the Raiders cared about anything else), no one has more titles than the Yankees (26 in 99 complete years). The Montreal Canadiens have the most titles in the NHL, maybe 23.