The Montreal expos slash Washington nationals have never appeared in a World Series. Neither have the Mariners, but the Expos had an 8-year head start (formed in 1969).
The cubs, obviously, have a longer WS-less streak going, but have 2 titles in the distant past.
The Washington senators who became the Texas rangers are the oldest pedigreed of the several teams that have never WON a World Series (1961).
There’s my Bills. They were a power team twenty-five years ago but they haven’t made the playoffs in fourteen seasons which is the current NFL record (the all-time record is seventeen seasons). And they haven’t won a playoff game in eighteen years.
Before Chris Paul 2 years ago, the answer for the NBA would have been the Clippers. Its amazing that with Blake and Paul, nobody even mentions them in passing on a topic like this.
Before Paul, their entire history is like this:
Create as the Buffalo Braves in 1970. 5 losing seasons out of 8, never got past the 2nd round of the playoffs.
Moved to San Diego in 1978, had a winning season there the first year and would not have one for 13 straight years, eventually relocating to LA where they were dwarfed and overshadowed by the Lakers.
Constant hopes of a decent season destroyed by the continuous curse of injuries. Terrible draft picks like former #1 Michael Olowokandi. Their wiki pages has a section for the “Lamar Odom era”! Really! Odom has an era on a team! Even Blake Griffin was afflicted. He injured his knee in the last preseason game of his first year and missed the whole freaking year!
They didn’t win their first franchise division title until 2013, 43 years after they came into being! Their owner apparently doesn’t pay coaches and was a racist towards NBA legend Elgin Baylor while he was the GM. I wouldn’t trust Donald Sterling to sell me a pack of gum let alone put my career and future in his hands.
If not for Chris Paul, they would still be far and away the worst team in NBA history. Just an entire lifetime of bad decisions and bad luck.
Little known bit of trivia, the Clippers are actually the Boston Celtics!? Or at least they have the franchise that was awarded to the Celtics back in the inaugural year of the NBA (1946). When the Braves wanted to move to San Diego, the Braves owner, John Y Brown swapped teams with the Celtics owner Irv Levin, with a few players being swapped as well. Levin, from California, knew that the NBA would never let the Celtics move out of Boston, but wouldn’t object to the Braves leaving Buffalo. (I believe it was 1978, not 1976.)
So, unless I’ve been rooting for laundry all these years, I’ve really been rooting for the original Buffalo Braves franchise, and the Los Angeles Clippers franchise have won 13 World Championships.
Got that?!
Geez, the Clippers have 2 good years and everyone forgets how fucking terrible they’ve been since, well, ever.
The Bullets were consistently one the best teams in the NBA throughout the 70s. They made the Finals 4 times and finished under .500 only once, and continued to make the playoffs regularly until the 1988-89 season. And even during the last 26 years since, they’ve certainly not had a stellar record or reputation, but still made the playoffs 5 times.
The team’s recent success is a bit puzzling. At age 80, has Sterling finally wised up and started spending money on his team or is he letting someone younger, smarter, and more-enlightened run things?
Maybe, instead of “wising up” Sterling has forgotten everything he used to know. Whatever works.
The trifecta of American sports suckitude belongs to Cleveland.
Indians - no World Series titles since 1948. Embarrassing WS losses in 1954 and 1997 (only team to lose 7th game after taking lead into the 9th).
Cavs - no NBA titles and only 1 conference title since joining the league in 1970. Embarrassing 4-0 loss in 2007 NBA finals, national humiliation when best player in team history leaves via a televised fiasco.
Browns - no NFL titles since 1964. Embarrassing conference title game losses in 1968, 1969, 1986, 1987 and 1989. City damn near implodes with team moves to Baltimore in 1995. New team comes in 1999, squeaks into playoffs once in 15 years, goes through 3 owners and numerous QBs & coaches.
honorable mention- NHL Barons, who lasted 2 seasons in the 1970s before they merged with the North Stars.
I don’t think everyone caught the title of the thread, which is “worst franchise” in “recent decades.” I’m not sure precisely where you drawn the line for “recent decade” but it sure as hell is not 1909.
If we go back, say, 25 years, it’d be hard to match the Royals, who in that span have not made the playoffs, the only team in major pro sports I can think of that can say that. If you go back 30 now you include their World Series win and have to figure someone else out.
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Indians - no World Series titles since 1948. Embarrassing WS losses in 1954 and 1997 (only team to lose 7th game after taking lead into the 9th).
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The 2001 Yankees also lost Game 7 by blowing a lead in the ninth.
Not the WS, but didn’t the Yankees have the lead in the 9th in the ALCS, up 3 games to 0, when Boston started its amazing comeback to win 8 games in a row to capture their first pennant since 1919?
(If I’m wrong, don’t tell me. I’d rather believe it happened that way. 
)
When it comes to pure wins and losses, they’d be tough to beat (with the Pirates close behind) but I don’t think I’d call either embarrassing. They just happen to play in a rigged system.
The new Browns, post-Super Bowl Bills and just about everything about the Lions has been embarrassing, all under a system which is built to prevent that type of ineptitude. They have no excuses.
The post-Ewing Knicks, Maple Leafs, Wizards and Clippers have each failed under more advantageous circumstances than the Royals too.
All depends on how you define “worst”, I guess.
Yeah, the Lions have always sucked during my lifetime. They’ve never played in a Super Bowl.
They just kind of exist and have no rise and fall cycle. They just lay at the bottom and never rise up.
I don’t feel too bad, though. We have the Red Wings, who have made the playoffs in 20 straight years(I think?).
While I’d agree the Royals are at a bit of a disadvantage, other small market teams have made the playoffs. For most of the last 25 years they have been a horribly run team who have wasted homegrown talent on impossibly awful trades and personnel decisions. Tampa Bay made the World Series, what’s KC’s excuse?
I hate, hate, hate the Leafs, but from 1993 to 2004 they were a very fine team that had deep playoff runs. It’s hard to define such a team as the WORST in recent decades.
Thank you for the correction RickJay. My Indians weren’t the only team to blow the World Series after taking a lead in to the 9th inning, but they were the first team to do so.
No, that’s perfectly correct. In fact, I was on another board at the time, in a thread talking about the series. At 3-0 the Yankee fans were pretty smug, the Sox fans despondent but accepting of their lot in life. Over the course of the next few days, you gradually see a reversal of the posters, people would say its just one game after 3-1, just one game after 3-2, and increasing the Sox fans were going crazier and crazier until the moment they won, it was like 8 pages of all caps cheering and Yankee fans in utter and complete disbelief. It was pretty magical to watch
It (the comeback and the subsequent WS) was one of the most enthralling sports events I’ve ever witnessed. Had I not been travelling for business, it is almost certain that I would have missed all of it.
You remember it correctly, but the original comment was about being down in the 9th inning of game 7. The Sox were down in the 9th inning of the elimination game, but not in game 7 (it was an ass whipping).
For college football, it would have to be the Indiana Hoosiers.
They are a large state school in a major conference with tons of bowl and TV revenue. One Rose Bowl appearance in the 60s and then one bowl in the last 20 years (keep in mind that the Big Ten usually sends 7 or 8 teams bowling since then).
True, they are a basketball school, but Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Duke have all been to bowl games, sometimes even BCS-level.
Even primarily academic schools have been bowling more recently than Indiana: Duke, Northwestern, and Vanderbilt. And these smaller schools compete in large football conferences.
Why hasn’t Indiana?
I’m not going to look it up, but wasn’t your “stud” during that 1 bowl year RB Anthony Davis?
(How the hell did I remember that?)
ETA: Thompson! Not Davis, he currently plays for the NBA.
Could this be the study?
The Big Market Effect on Baseball
(I know you said “basketball”, but you were a bit uncertain about it all, so… )
Sample quote: