Since big-time pro sports came to Seattle in 1967, the opportunities for championships have been fairly plentiful. The NBA Sonics made the playoffs 22 times before leaving town in 2008, a run that included six trips to the Western Conference finals and three to the NBA finals. Football’s Seahawks have made it to the postseason 11 times since their 1976 birth, reaching the conference championship game twice and the Super Bowl in 2006. And the Mariners, an American League expansion team in 1977, managed to reach the American League Championship Series three times between 1995 and 2001.
But through a cumulative 111 seasons and 37 playoff appearances during this era, Seattle boasts only one champion: the 1979 Sonics of Gus Williams, Jack Sikma and Dennis Johnson. The list of playoff busts includes some real gut-wrenchers: The 1978 Sonics blew a championship by dropping a Game 7 at home to Washington in the finals, while the top-seeded 1994 club lost a first-round series to the eighth-seeded Denver Nuggets. And the 2001 Mariners went down in the playoffs to the Yankees after posting a 116-46 record during the regular season. Add it all up, and Seattle’s history lands it at the top of our list of the most Miserable Sports Cities.
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