The Cities That Victory Forgot

Here at Raccoon Inc., there is one professional sports team that we really do feel truly sorry for.

In changing with their new winning ways, this "A" logo now stands for "Argonauts" and not the more traditional "Awful".

Now you may say to yourself, "Hey!  How come is it that you feel so bad about them?  They just won the Grey Cup, didn't they?  Why cry on their shoulder?"  The answer is simple: they get the short end of the stick.  I mean, they really get the short end of the stick.  In such a huge city as Toronto, they can win a championship and seemingly not even get noticed.  How do I know they're not getting noticed?  The moment they win the Grey Cup, I still hear their fans saying...

All Toronto wants is a winner!  Why can't Toronto just have a winning team for once?

What?  The Argos just won the Grey Cup!  How much more winning can you get?  How could it possibly be all that bad?  So then I wondered: is Toronto all that bad off, or as bad off as they're whining about?  I came up with this experiment.

What you see below you is the winning percentage for every North American city that has two or more professional sports in descending order.  Say you're a sports fan.  Say you want to watch a game at your local professional sports franchise.  Say you go and buy a ticket to that game.  What you see here is the percentage likelihood that a team each of these major sports cities (Sorry Regina and Green Bay...) will win that game.  This information takes into account every single game played by every team in the NBA, MLB, NFL, CFL, NHL, and MLS in the last ten years.  To be fair, this also includes the non-games caused by lockouts.

"Fair enough," says Gary.

 And here's the list.  Please bear in mind that this took a while to compile, too!

Indianapolis  60.4%
Boston  58.3%
Dallas  55.9%
San Jose  54.7%
San Diego  54.2%
Nashville  53.7%
Calgary  53.5%
Montreal  53.0%
Philadelphia  52.9%
Pittsburgh  52.5%
New Orleans  52.4%
Baltimore  51.7%
Denver  51.4%
Seattle  51.1%
New Jersey  51.0%
Los Angeles  50.8%
Houston  50.7%
Chicago  50.5%
Detroit  49.3%
New York  49.3%
Salt Lake City  48.9%
Vancouver  48.9%
Phoenix  48.5%
Tampa  48.1%
Atlanta  47.8%
San Fransisco  47.7%
Minneapolis  47.5%
Miami  47.4%
Columbus  46.9%
Cincinnati  46.7%
Milwaukee  46.7%
Edmonton  46.4%
Buffalo  46.3%
Portland  46.3%
Toronto  45.8%
St. Louis  45.8%
Kansas City  45.7%
Washington  45.0%
Ottawa  44.9%
Cleveland  44.4%
Winnipeg  44.0%
Charlotte  43.9%
Oakland  43.4%

So with all this said and done, does Toronto still suck?  Mmyeah, but it could be worse: they could be Oakland.

"Fair enough," says Rollie.

My advice for Toronto fans who feel hard done by and want winning teams to be able to cheer for is simple and effective.

Embrace the dark side of the force.

Thank you and good night.