The Champs / Chumps Ratio

by Stephen Taylor

Recently, while watching the Golden State Warriors drop another disheartening loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, I consoled myself with the thought, “At least the Warriors won the NBA championship back in ’75.” A promo for the next game led me to continue, “Which is one more than the Mavericks have ever won.”

Only a few seconds later I added, “And one more than the Suns.”

“And the Jazz…”

“And the Nuggets…”

As one “and” piled upon another, a surprising thought hit me: A lot of teams have never won the NBA championship.

How many, you ask? That’s what I wanted to know, and a quick check at NBA.com satisfied my curiosity: only 16 out of the current 30 teams have ever won an NBA championship. That translates to a paltry 53.3% — a figure we will call The Champs/Chumps Ratio.

But how paltry is that 53.3%? Perhaps the NBA isn’t so bad in relative terms. How does that percentage compare with the other major pro sports leagues?

Bad news, hoops fans. It turns out the NBA really is the league where championship dreams go to die. All three of the other major leagues beat the NBA on the Champs/Chumps Ratio.

The NHL is the closest to the NBA in competitive imbalance. Only 17 of its 30 teams have ever won the Stanley Cup, an unremarkable ratio of 56.7%. Football fares substantially better: the NFL has seen 22 of its 32 teams win the NFL championship (including pre-Super Bowl champs), a healthy ratio of 68.7%. And then there’s Major League Baseball. Apparently, there really is something to all that Spring Training talk about hope and renewal: a full 22 out of 30 major league teams — a robust 73.3% — have won the World Series.

These numbers suggest that when it comes to competitive balance, baseball and football are accomplished pros, hockey has a lot of catching up to do — and basketball is one big personal foul.

This comparison works because, thanks to happy accidents of history and demographics, all four leagues have nearly the same number of teams and have followed roughly parallel paths of expansion. The one potential problem is length of service: simply put, given their full histories, some leagues have contested more championships than others.

So let’s cut down the time frame. If we use 1975 (an arbitrary choice based on the Warriors’ last championship, which was the germ of this study) as the cutoff, do we see any change in how the leagues stack up on competitive balance?

No. Though the numbers shift downward — a natural byproduct of cutting away so much history — the relative hierarchy stays the same. Again MLB reigns supreme: 19 out of 30 teams (63.3%) have won the Series since 1975. The NFL takes a deep cut, with only 15 of 32 teams (46.9%) having hoisted the Lombardi trophy since ’75 — still good enough for second place. The NHL nips at football’s heels in third, having seen 13 of its 30 teams (43.3%) skate with the Stanley Cup in recent times.

Note, too, that in absolute terms, only three champions in both the NHL and MLB won their titles before the last 35 years. Baseball and football have had competitive balance all along, but even the relatively imbalanced NHL can boast that many of its champions were crowned in recent times.

And the NBA? It’s worse than you think. Only 11 of its 30 teams, an abysmal 36.7%, have won the championship since Rick Barry and Al Attles made it happen in Oakland. That is, almost two-thirds of the league has been shut out since 1975. Clearly, while baseball and football fans have valid hopes for their favorite teams, most NBA fans are getting hosed.

Of course, fans have many reasons for following their favorite teams. Rooting for the last team standing is not everything. But given the evidence — attendance figures, TV ratings, the tenor of sports talk radio — winning is what matters most to fans. And championships are the ultimate expression of the average fan’s satisfaction.

Unfortunately, the Champs/Chumps ratios indicate that many fans of many teams are doomed to years of frustration. We must remember, though, that, as daunting as those numbers may be, the situation is never entirely hopeless. Many teams that have never won a title have come close, reaching their leagues’ championship round at least once. And just two days after that Warriors-Thunder game that got me thinking, the New Orleans Saints won their first NFL championship after 42 years of trying. Longtime chumps can indeed become champs.

But if you’re a Suns or Jazz fan — or, for that matter, a Warriors fan — don’t hold your breath.