Phoenix Ranked Third “Most Miserable” Pro Sports City in Country (No, Women’s Basketball Doesn’t Count as a Real Sport)

Phoenix-area sports teams just can’t win — even in a contest where all they would need to do to win is lose consistently.

Forbes Magazine released its list of the country’s “Most Miserable Sports Cities,” and despite the fact that only one Phoenix-area major sports team has won a championship in its respective sport — ever — Phoenix still only managed to earn runner-up honors.

According to Forbes, Phoenix is the third-most-miserable sports city in the country, and we know why: the Phoenix Coyotes, the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Arizona Cardinals, and the Phoenix Suns.

Of Phoenix’s four major sports franchises, only the Diamondbacks have ever won a championship — and that was a decade ago.

In total, Phoenix-area teams have participated in a combined 92 season. Only in 2001, when the D-Backs beat the New York Yankees in the World Series, did a championship find its way to the desert.

The Suns, which Forbes refers to as “perennial pretenders,” have reached the NBA’s Western Conference Championship game nine times since 1976 without ever winning an NBA title.

Other miserable sports cities include Seattle, which took the number-one spot, Atlanta, which took the silver medal, and Buffalo, New York, which came in fourth, much thanks to the Buffalo Bills (with the help of Scott Norwood…the Ray Finkle of real life) losing four Super Bowls in a row in the early 1990s.

We realize women’s basketball’s only kind of a sport, but had it been included in the rankings, the number of championships won by Phoenix-area sports teams would have tripled to three — the Phoenix Mercury won two championships, one in 2007 and one in 2009.

There you have it, Phoenicians — your women’s basketball team is the pride of Phoenix’s sporting world (insert Nelson Muntz “ha-ha” here).  

See the entire Forbes list here.