Prospector Sam - The Last Holdout: Losing Sporting Cities

Welcome back to the latest installment of “the Prospector handicapping things nobody asked for and with a complete lack of mathematical consistency.”

I had a lot of fun writing about the race towards legalizing sports gambling in the US (I find myself funny, who cares if anyone else does right?) so I thought I’d turn it into a recurring segment. My ability to write creative pieces comes and goes as I get new ideas. Sometimes its easy, and I stumble into a brilliant nugget while 6 beers deep that turns into a great piece. Other times, I can go weeks without a spark. So having a consistent theme to run with will help fill the gap and give me a starting point when nothing else funny comes along. Apologies if this isn’t up your alley, but, until you can pay me enough money to quit my day job, I call the shots here (seriously, I have no shame and will take your money. Please donate).

The topic this time is going in a bit of a different direction than the last one, but will definitely hit a nerve for any fans out there reading that this piece applies to. Today, I will be setting the future for which sports city with a current major American sports team (MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA) will be the last to win a championship. Shockingly enough, there aren’t a lot of “significant cities” left on this list. By my completely biased and un-scientific opinion I count 3, one of which doesn’t really deserve any negativity due to the fact their teams just recently arrived (Las Vegas). Aside from that, the list reads a bit like “cities you would be disappointed to be visiting unless you were a coming from Bulgaria where even Buffalo seems exciting and happy.” But hey, I guess you can’t expect real cities to go very long without winning anything.

So with that, I present you with the complete board for the city that will be the last to win a major sports championship (no, I do not count your CFL titles). Like last time, you should not expect these numbers to add up to make a legitimate line, nor should you expect there to be any hard science or research on this topic. This is based purely on intuition, stereotypes, and any information I can find with a quick google search. That said, since I am the only handicapper willing to do this, I will assert that it is the definitive authority on future championship hopes for sad sports cities. Unless you can point me somewhere else, I refuse to hear otherwise.

⛏️ Las Vegas (+100,000)

Lets start with the easiest one to knock off the list. American sports finally gave up on the ridiculous notion that they needed to separate themselves from gambling and Las Vegas when the NHL planted their flag in the ground and brought to Knights to town. Since then, the Raiders also built a brand new stadium, and there are rumblings that the MLB and NBA looking to get into the market as well. It makes sense, since it’s a city built on entertainment with a heavy dose of sports gambling, so hosting the biggest sports in the country would be an awesome addition. They’re also able to build these stadiums right off the Vegas Strip because there is absolutely nothing else of significance in the middle of the Nevada desert, which means you can go see a game and walk a couple of blocks to drink and gamble your face off at whatever table suits you (I’m a poker player myself, but to each his/her own). All of that is completely irrelevant to the purpose of the article, but I really just needed to fill some time before saying that Vegas will get a title soon. The Knights almost won in their first season, and with 2 or more teams in a major sports market the odds that a trophy makes its way out there are high relative to the other cities in play. The only question for Vegas is how soon until they reach the promised land.

 

⛏️ Nashville (+75,000)

 

I will preface this by saying that I consider the Titans to be a Nashville team. That makes sense both because this is an article about cities, not states, and because their stadium is smack dab in the middle of Nashville right across from Broadway. So get out of here with your hogwash about them being a “Tennessee Team.” Back to the analysis, Nashville gets the nod here for a couple of reasons. One is that they are a fairly significant city in the south that can attract players and money. The other, which is probably more important, is that they are one of two other cities on this list with multiple teams, which goes a long way in breaking this barrier. Granted, you might be thinking that a hockey team in Nashville isn’t exactly destined for success. You probably aren’t all that wrong in that assumption, but as we saw with Tampa Bay winning the Stanley Cup this year even a blind squirrel can find a nut every once in a while in a warm city (so long as they have decent money and fan backing). Additionally, unlike basketball (and to some extent football) players, there isn’t really all that much holding NHL players from moving to Nashville. Sure, they might be just fine living in the middle of Saskatchewan doing nothing but drinking beer and playing hockey, but it isn’t pulling teeth to get them to Nashville in the same way that it’s tough to convince an NBA player to move to Oklahoma City. So with the Titans and Predators around I feel fairly confident that Nashville will win something. Both of these organizations have made it to the finals of their respective sport, and its only a matter of time until one of them wins.

 

⛏️ Buffalo (+50,000)

I’m not going to lie, I went into this article thinking I’d have Buffalo near the top of the contenders, and then I remembered that the Sabres existed. It might be generous to consider this a two-sport city, because anyone with familiarity with that organization knows just how much of a dumpster fire it is. What’s also funny is that, relative to the Sabres, the Bills look like a well run and prospering organizations. Unfortunately, relativity only gets you so far. The Bills pulled off the near-impossible by losing four straight Super Bowls in the early 1990s and have never made it back to the promised land. Add in the fact that they have one of the oldest, and arguably the worst, stadium in the League and they don’t have a ton to be optimistic about either. But hey, probability is a science and having two shots at winning instead of one is enough to give Buffalo the edge over any other one-sport city. Unfortunately for those fans, most of them still have to live in Buffalo.

 

⛏️ Orlando (+2,000)

Now we get down to the real nitty-gritty. Cities with a single team who have yet to win a major championship, most of which host small and incompetently run organizations. When you get down into the weeds this deep, there is probably a fairly good argument that any of these organizations will continue to fail forever, especially because most of them have proven that they cannot make up for their geographic/monetary challenges with good management. So why is Orlando the “best loser”? Honestly, while never managing to do much of anything, they still have some solid factors going for them. For one, I’d say the NBA is probably the easiest sport to overcome a small market in because one great draft pick can change the course of an organization. Just look at what Lebron did to Cleveland or what Giannis has done in Milwaukee, two cities who probably never deserve to have nice things. On top of that, as far as bad NBA free agent destinations go, you could do a hell of a lot worse than the home of Disney. Sure, it doesn’t have the big city pull that LA or NYC uses to leverage big players on the market, but at least you can sell them on warm weather and lots of Mickey Mouse-themed distractions for the little ones. Being in the Eastern Conference in the NBA is a big bonus as well. Its pretty uncontroversial at this point to say just about anyone can succeed in the East, where sub-.500 teams regularly make the playoffs. Not having to fight their way through a loaded West will make things easer in the long run for Orlando. It probably isn’t happening soon, but the Magic don’t have the worst path by a long shot.

 

⛏️ Jacksonville (+1,500)

Jacksonville has basically the same argument as Orlando, with a couple of added limitations. For one, building a strong NFL team is a lot more difficult than building a strong NBA team (based on sheer volume of players), and, while the Jags look poised to land Trevor Lawrence, there is a lot more ground to make up than just fixing one position. On top of that, while the Jaguars are in the traditionally-soft AFC South (which guarantees two nice matchups against a laughable Houston Texans organization), the conferences aren’t as skewed in the NFL as they are in the NBA. But still, Florida is a pretty nice place to live, and I would guess guys feel a lot better about moving there than Indianapolis or Kansas City. Do I have great things to say about the Jaguars? No. They have traditionally been one of the worst managed teams in the League and have never even made a super bowl in their 25-year history. But they’ve proven they can attract big names like Urban Meyer, and I see things working out for them eventually.

 

⛏️ Vancouver (+1,200.1)

Alright, we’re about to get into the weird part of this process where I try to dive into why the two current Canadian NHL cities have hope. To be quite honest, I could barely even place either of them on a map, so I’m going off pure intuition and stereotyping. I’ve at least heard a person utter the words “you should go visit there” in reference to Vancouver, which gives them the edge for me. I know most Canadians hate British Columbia, but Vancouver is on the water and the city feels like it has something going for it. I was shocked when I found out that it was actually smaller in terms of population, but I had already made up my mind on Vancouver being better and I refused to let that change the order(especially because the difference in number of individuals who say “eh” was relatively small). As far as winning in the NHL, hockey also seems to have much more opportunity to come out of nowhere and win. A hot goalie in the playoffs is usually what separates the champion from the losers, so each of these organizations just needs to string together a decent roster and get hot at the right time. Vancouver has had opportunities in the last decade to make it to the promised land (including a close miss in 2011), and I expect they make it there eventually.

 

⛏️ Winnipeg (+1,200)

Winnipeg probably deserves more credit than I’m giving them, especially because the franchise is brand new, but the fact that there is a legitimate professional team in Winnipeg still blows my mind. Sure, Canadians love their hockey and they probably deserve to have a decent number of teams, but Winnipeg feels like a real stretch. Even still, they get some help from the hockey parity previously discussed, and hockey players have proven that they have no problem going to live in the middle of nowhere surrounded by frozen tundra, so convincing players to move out to Winnipeg won’t be too difficult. It feels weird to say that I expect Winnipeg to win anything other than a spot on the list of “worst places in the world to live in the world unless you like frostbite and Caribou,” but I guess that’s where we are.

 

⛏️ Utah (+1000)

I’m about to toe a very fine line when it comes to acceptable discourse in America, so shield your eyes if that isn’t your thing. But hey, I’m not exactly someone who does things by the book or fits the traditional media mold, so I might as well lean into my place in the world. Utah probably has no business being the home of a professional sports organization, and certainly not an NBA one. But, despite the fact that they’ve seemingly lost the battle for success when it comes to playing the sport, rural white folk love them some basketball. To be honest, I may be basing this as much off Indiana and the movie “Hoosiers” as any reality about the state of Utah, but the Industry State (yes, that is their state motto and I have no idea what the hell it means or how it applies to Utah either) has created a cult status around the Jazz. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that nobody else has trusted Utah with anything significant (other than that one Olympic Games), but the idea of sticking a pro sports team in Salt Lake City just doesn’t seem to make much sense. Yet, here we are, with the Utah Jazz, who have had some solid success in the NBA including a run with John Stockton and Carl Malone where they would have won a title were it not for some guy named Michael Jordan. There are problems though. Salt Lake City is a small market without a lot of draw for free agents who probably don’t love the fact that they can barely drink and there is nothing to do there. On top of that, Utah pretty much entirely filled with white Mormons, which likely isn’t high on the list of attractive populations for the average NBA player. So basically, they need to draft well and pray they can keep guys around and develop them in order to succeed. Its possible, but in the current NBA climate where players hold all the power and can force themselves into more favorable situations and locations, the hill to climb for Utah is pretty steep. Shockingly, they aren’t even in my top 2 for the NBA though.

 

⛏️ Memphis (+800)

It’s a bit of a wonder that Memphis even has an NBA team at all, especially because they weren’t some legacy organization like the Jazz or Green Bay Packers who just managed to hang on to what they had. Somebody in 2001 actually thought “hey, we need to move this organization, lets put it in Memphis.” That person probably did not keep their job for long. The Grizz have not had a good 20 years in Tennessee, making just one conference final, which they got swept in, while making the playoffs in only 50% of their seasons. But the real problem here? It fucking MEMPHIS. Who the hell wants to go to Memphis, the second best city in a below average state. Have you ever wanted to go to Tennessee, but not the part that has good food and music? Well, we have the place for you, in a city most known for being the headquarters of FedEx. So, yeah, getting free agents is a stretch. They also have to deal with the Western Conference issue, and they have a pretty weak financial/fan backing relative to pretty much any team in the league. Honestly, this is an organization that even has some danger of ending up in another city, which could make them a huge dark horse value for this bet. But there are no suggestions of that happening now, so they aren’t on the worst footing, and the parity rules in the NBA (draft, profit sharing) will give them a fighting chance.

 

⛏️ Oklahoma City (+600)

When I heard that the NBA was actively moving an organization to Oklahoma City, I was stunned. Why in god’s name would anyone believe that that would be a good idea. And to the Thunders credit, it actually hasn’t gone so bad. They drafted incredibly well, built some solid rosters, and even managed to make a NBA Finals in 2012. That said, you have to take advantage of having Russell Westbrook, James Harden AND Kevin Durant on the same court, and they somehow did not. I also don’t know of any pitch you can make to get a player in today’s NBA to actively move to the middle of fucking Oklahoma. It’s a sport driven by free agent signings, and no place is less likely to succeed in that marketplace than OKC. They might as well be the store-brand knock-off salesman, trying to convince you to pick their product in stead of Coke (and that comparison might be insulting to store-brand knockoffs).

 

⛏️ San Jose (+300)

I dare you to find me a worse pair than San Jose and NHL hockey. Seriously. Mayo and Jelly, 100-degree weather and a winter coat, the Prospector and sophisticated society. They all make more sense than putting a fucking hockey team in San Jose. And, I know, its basically a San Francisco team because the two cities are so close, and the population in the area might warrant a franchise in every sport. But the name says San Jose, so those hippies aren’t getting any credit for a place that isn’t on the logo. Now, you may recall I mentioned that hockey has a bit more parity than other sports and a hot goalie could be enough to get you over the finish line in the playoffs. But there’s a difference between the average organization, and the San Jose Sharks. They’ve made a single Stanley Cup Final in their 30-year history, and getting any excitement and passion for a hockey team in Northern California is like trying to get a porcupine to do heart surgery (I’m not sure what that means or how it applies, but it felt right so here we are). While the Sharks may have a fighter’s chance if they make it to the playoffs, I’m not holding my breath on a trophy any time soon. I’d say you might be more likely to see them leave the city than you are to see them win a Cup at this point.

 

⛏️ San Diego (+175)

This pick might be surprising to a lot of you, especially because San Diego is actually the biggest city on the list. Unfortunately for San Diego fans, things got bad when they lost their NFL team (not that the Chargers were any big threat to win something) and were left with a hapless Padres organization. But the real deciding factor in this race is the salary cap (or lack there of in baseball). Do you know what this list would look like if I tried to set the odds for a Premier League team who hadn’t won the title to win? It would be a mess, because with no spending parity the big teams who pump out money continue to win while the poor ones lose. Every once in a while you get lucky and see a Leicester pull off a stunning title performance, or even a small market organization like Cleveland make it to the World Series. But in a game where you spend as much as you want (with some meaningless salary tax penalties that rich owners ignore), you don’t have a lot of opportunity for upward mobility. There’s a reason why teams like the Yankees, Dodgers, and Red Sox always seem to be fighting for the title. And even when you see smaller cities, they’re usually organizations like St. Louis who have a strong history and solid financial backing to compete. Then you get the Pirates and Padres of the world, who basically end their season the day they show up. The Padres have made the playoffs five times since they were founded in 1969. FIVE. That’s absolutely heinous. And while they’ve made two World Series in that time, they went 1-8 in those appearances. So while Padres fans might have a glimmer of hope these days with Tatis Jr. and co. building momentum and increased roster spending over the last two years, let me be the first to say that I would not hold my breath. Until they get bought by a person or group with rich pockets who dislikes money, this team probably isn’t going to win anything.

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