Washington DC's 2025 Was Bad, But 38 Cities Have Had It Way Worse Since 1950
Look, being a DC sports fan in 2025 was rough. The Nationals went 66-96, the Commanders limped to 5-12 after riding high on a Conference Championship run in 2024, the Wizards bottomed out at 17-65, and the Capitals missed the playoffs for the first time since 2022-23 despite actually posting a winning 43-30 record. That's the kind of across-the-board collapse that makes you want to pull your hair out.
But here's the thing: DC fans actually dodged a bullet compared to what other four-sport cities have endured. According to the data, the 2025 Washington DC Metro ranks 39th worst among the eight big-four sports cities since 1950. Yeah, you read that right. It's brutal, but it's not even close to the bottom.
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The analysis looked only at the eight four-sport cities in North America: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, DC, Philadelphia, Phoenix, the Twin Cities, and Atlanta. Each team's end-of-year ranking percentile within its league got averaged out, so a 29th-place finish in MLB (out of 30) is directly comparable to a 29th-place finish in the NFL (out of 32). One team per sport, too. You're not mixing in the Yankees when you're a Mets fan, right?
Chicago and New York Made DC Look Lucky
Chicago had it absolutely brutal. The 2022, 2023, and 2024 stretches ranked 17th, 27th, and 34th respectively. Three straight years of getting kicked in the teeth. No wonder that Bears playoff game a couple months ago felt like the Super Bowl for the second city.
But New York in 2017? That year spawned six different combinations of terrible seasons, with rankings hitting 18th, 20th, 25th, 29th, 32nd, and 38th depending on which teams you paired together. The Mets, Giants, Jets, Knicks, Nets, Rangers, and Islanders all had their turn making the 2017 calendar an absolute nightmare.
Detroit's Two-Year Apocalypse
If you want to see genuine suffering, look at Detroit in 2019 and 2020. They ranked 3rd and 1st worst respectively. Not a single team from that city had any shot at the playoffs during those two years. Even COVID showed mercy by shortening those seasons.
So yeah, DC fans got dealt a tough hand in 2025. But at least you're not Detroit in 2019.
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