The 2024 Chicago White Sox have secured their place in the canon of the worst professional sports teams in history, setting a modern Major League Baseball (MLB) record for the most losses in one season. However, the list is populated by a variety of teams from different sports with disastrous seasons, including the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats, and the 2008 Detroit Lions.
The 2011-12 NBA season saw the Charlotte Bobcats, owned by basketball legend Michael Jordan, win only seven regular season games. This stands as an enduring testament to a disastrous performance, with a .106 winning percentage marking the worst in NBA history. The team’s fate was sealed by a 23 game losing streak, and their average points per game being the lowest by any team in the last 20 years. 2011 also saw the WNBA’s Detroit Shock set a record for the worst winning percentage after gutted by departures and undergoing a mid-season change of coach to finally finish the season at 3-31.
Joining these teams in infamy is the Derby County side of the 2007-08 English Premier League. With only one match win and an accumulated 11 points, it remains the worst performance since the league began in 1992. The Philadelphia 76ers of 1972-73 and the 2003 Detroit Tigers also make this list, the former setting an NBA record for losses, and the latter narrowly avoiding becoming the worst in an MLB season by recording a comeback victory during the final week of play.
The list continues with the 1992-93 Ottawa Senators and the 1974-75 Washington Capitals, both NHL teams, and the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the NFL. The Senators’ inaugural return season after a prolonged hiatus was marked by only one win in 23 games, while the hapless Washington Capitals’ first season was marred by an incredibly poor 1-39 road game record. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, contrarily, did not record a single victory in their first NFL season, going down in history with an entirely defeated season.
The 1962 New York Mets tallied the worst ever MLB performance, with a staggering 120 losses. The 2017 Cleveland Browns, becoming only the second team after the Detroit Lions of 2008 to record a completely winless season in the NFL, and the currently competing 2024 Chicago White Sox, breaking the Mets’ long-held record with 121 losses, follow closely behind. However, the title for worst professional sports team of all time goes to the 1899 Cleveland Spiders. Suffering from intentional team resource manipulation by the owner, the Spiders suffered an absurdly unbalanced 20-134 win-loss record.
