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I am an unfortunate soul. Chicago sports fandom was bestowed upon me, as it was upon my father and my father’s father. While there is the occasional flare of success with a particular team (90s Bulls, 80s Bears, 2010s Blackhawks), the city as a whole seems doomed to mediocrity.

I began to wonder, is Chicago a worse sports town than others or am I just melodramatic? My investigation follows.

Best Sports Towns

Behold the historical win percentages of all sports places with at least 40 total seasons played. Green Bay is first, but that’s not really fair because Green Bay is not a sports town, it just has the Packers. Las Vegas is too new to truly count. Boston is really the first place on the list with a legitimate claim to being a “sports town.” Hover over Boston’s bar to see the numerous teams that have claimed Boston as their home, from the Boston Beaneaters to the Worcester Ruby Legs! To my surprise, Chicago is quite high on this list. There’s very little variation between places; most places are at or around .500.

Chicago in the Aggregate

The plot below shows the average winning percentage across all Chicago-area teams for a given season after 1920. While the White Stockings pulled off some great seasons in the late 1800s, Chicago as a sports town really began in the 1920s with the Bears, White Sox, and Cubs.

There were some good Chicago seasons between 1920 and 1940! Their winning percentage was mostly bolstered by the Bears, who somehow won almost every game. After 1940, the picture is less rosy. Of the 80 all-Chicago seasons since 1940, 36 have had a winning percentage over .500. Almost every season has seen a winning percentage between .400 and .600. 1991 was the best modern year for Chicago Sports. MJ’s Bulls and Ditka’s Bears buoyed the winning percentage as the Cubs and White Sox managed to not be horrible.

Chicago by Team

How has each team done? You can click on a team in the legend to show or hide their line. The Blackhawks have almost always been under .500, with the exception of the recent Kane/Toews teams. The Bulls were really good with MJ and Derrick Rose and the years in between were pretty bad, but its still a respectable franchise. The Cubs and the White Sox have both been pretty average (historical winning percetnages of .507 and .503 respectively). The Bears are by far the strongest team, with a historical winning percentage of .576.

When you break down the seasons by team, it looks like random noise. One team’s great season is cancelled out by another team’s poor season. You might be surprised that there aren’t sustained stretches where all the franchises in a given area are above average. I was too.

Chicago and Other Major Cities

Chicago is about consistent with the other major sports cities. None display sustained stretches above city-wide excellence.

Seasons by Place

As with most things, winning percentage follows a normal distribution.1 The average win percentage is .488 and the standard deviation is .15.

Histogram

For the below plot, I’ve restricted it to cities with at least three major sports teams during that season. Almost every season lies between .4 and .6, but the outliers are interesting. Place your cursor over a point to see the city and the teams. In 1998, for example, Atlanta managed a .72 winning percentage thanks to the contributions of the Hawks, Falcons, and Braves. On the other end of the spectrum, Philadelphia in 1972 managed a .25 winning percentage. They had 4 teams!

Top 10 City Seasons of All Time

Year City Winning Pct. Teams
1927 New York 0.733563 New York Giants: 0.889
New York Giants: 0.597
New York Yankees: 0.714
1998 Atlanta 0.71644 Atlanta Falcons: 0.875
Atlanta Braves: 0.654
Atlanta Hawks: 0.62
1972 Boston 0.689898 Boston Red Sox: 0.548
Boston Celtics: 0.829
Boston Bruins: 0.692
1937 Chicago 0.687446 Chicago Bears: 0.9
Chicago White Sox: 0.558
Chicago Cubs: 0.603
1926 Chicago 0.687293 Chicago Bears: 1.0
Chicago White Sox: 0.529
Chicago Cubs: 0.532
2007 Dallas 0.681585 Dallas Cowboys: 0.813
Dallas Mavericks: 0.622
Dallas Stars: 0.609
2006 Dallas 0.675447 Dallas Cowboys: 0.563
Dallas Mavericks: 0.817
Dallas Stars: 0.646
1966 Philadelphia 0.673346 Philadelphia Eagles: 0.643
Philadelphia Phillies: 0.537
Philadelphia 76ers: 0.84
1929 New York 0.67224 New York Giants: 0.889
New York Giants: 0.556
New York Yankees: 0.571
1930 New York 0.667594 New York Yankees: 0.714
New York Giants: 0.833
New York Giants: 0.564
New York Yankees: 0.558

Bottom 10 City Seasons of All Time

Year City Winning Pct. Teams
1971 Buffalo 0.215564 Buffalo Bills: 0.071
Buffalo Braves: 0.268
Buffalo Sabres: 0.307
1972 Philadelphia 0.250135 Philadelphia Eagles: 0.179
Philadelphia Phillies: 0.378
Philadelphia 76ers: 0.11
Philadelphia Flyers: 0.333
1939 Philadelphia 0.253285 Philadelphia Eagles: 0.1
Philadelphia Athletics: 0.361
Philadelphia Phillies: 0.298
1940 Philadelphia 0.256149 Philadelphia Eagles: 0.091
Philadelphia Athletics: 0.350
Philadelphia Phillies: 0.326
1936 Philadelphia 0.260018 Philadelphia Eagles: 0.083
Philadelphia Athletics: 0.346
Philadelphia Phillies: 0.350
1972 Buffalo 0.260709 Buffalo Bills: 0.321
Buffalo Braves: 0.256
Buffalo Sabres: 0.205
1942 Philadelphia 0.27243 Philadelphia Eagles: 0.182
Philadelphia Athletics: 0.357
Philadelphia Phillies: 0.278
1979 Detroit 0.283863 Detroit Lions: 0.125
Detroit Tigers: 0.527
Detroit Pistons: 0.195
Detroit Red Wings: 0.287
1969 Pittsburgh 0.292456 Pittsburgh Steelers: 0.071
Pittsburgh Pirates: 0.543
Pittsburgh Penguins: 0.263
1941 Philadelphia 0.298268 Philadelphia Eagles: 0.2
Philadelphia Athletics: 0.415
Philadelphia Phillies: 0.279

Conclusion

I didn’t find anything that interesting. Obviously winning percentage isn’t really the goal; cities want to take home championships. I’m unsure of how to factor in a championship into this analysis so I just ignore it. The accompanying code can be found here.

  1. This is an example of the Central Limit Theorem. We’re summing up individual sports teams (independent random variables) and we get a nice normal distribution. ↩

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