July 06, 2018

Philadelphia's sports teams have gone from the worst in North America to among the best

By Jimmy Kempski
PhillyVoice Staff

Back on November 16, 2015, a day after the Philadelphia Eagles suffered a bad home loss to one of the worst teams in the NFL, the Miami Dolphins, we made the rather easy observation that Philadelphia's sports teams as a whole stunk.

The Phillies had just completed a season in which they had the worst record in baseball, the Sixers were in year three of tank mode and had gotten out to an 0-11 start, and the Flyers were off to a disappointing start to their season, at 6-8-3.

If you combined all the Philly teams' winning percentages at the time and divided by four, they averaged out to 0.297, which was by far the worst winning percentage average of any city in North America with at least three franchises.

11/16/15	NFL	MLB	NBA	NHL	Average
Boston/NE	1.000	0.481	0.556	0.500	0.634
Oakland	0.444	0.420	1.000	N/A	0.621
Pittsburgh	0.600	0.605	N/A	0.588	0.598
Phoenix	0.778	0.488	0.556	0.529	0.588
Atlanta	0.667	0.414	0.667	N/A	0.583
Minneapolis	0.778	0.512	0.400	0.625	0.579
St. Louis	0.444	0.617	N/A	0.647	0.569
Chicago	0.444	0.512*	0.667	0.555	0.550
Washington DC	0.444	0.512	0.500	0.688	0.536
Denver	0.778	0.420	0.500	0.412	0.528
Cleveland	0.200	0.503	0.800	N/A	0.501
New York	0.526*	0.546*	0.286*	0.639*	0.499
Toronto	N/A	0.574	0.636	0.278	0.496
Miami	0.444	0.438	0.667	0.412	0.490
Tampa	0.444	0.494	N/A	0.421	0.453
Los Angeles	N/A	0.546	0.333	0.471	0.450
Detroit	0.375	0.531	0.400	0.471	0.444
Houston	0.375	0.531	0.400	N/A	0.435
Philadelphia	0.444	0.389	0.000	0.353	0.297

*Asterisk denotes cities with multiple teams in one sport, which we averaged together.

Gross.

Fast forward to July 6, 2018. The Eagles just won the Super Bowl, the Sixers closed their regular season with a 16-game winning streak (and won a playoff series), the Phillies are 10 games above .500 and just one game back in the NL East, and the Flyers were a quick out in the playoffs, but at least they made it there.

The combined winning percentages of the current Philadelphia franchises? That's .630. Here's how that compares with the rest of North America:

7/6/18	NFL	MLB	NBA	NHL	Average
Boston/NE	0.813	0.670	0.671	0.610	0.691
Philadelphia	0.813	0.560	0.634	0.512	0.630
Pittsburgh	0.813	0.465	N/A	0.573	0.617
Toronto	N/A	0.465	0.720	0.598	0.594
Minneapolis	0.813	0.429	0.573	0.549	0.591
Houston	0.250	0.652	0.793	N/A	0.565
Oakland	0.375	0.552	0.707	N/A	0.545
Los Angeles	0.625*	0.523*	0.470*	0.549	0.542
Washington DC	0.438	0.500	0.524	0.598	0.515
Atlanta	0.625	0.570	0.293	N/A	0.496
Tampa	0.313	0.500	N/A	0.659	0.491
Denver	0.313	0.506	0.561	0.524	0.476
Miami	0.375	0.404	0.537	0.537	0.463
Detroit	0.563	0.427	0.476	0.366	0.458
Phoenix	0.500	0.545	0.256	0.354	0.414
Cleveland	0.000	0.565	0.610	N/A	0.392
New York	0.250*	0.539*	0.348*	0.421*	0.390
Chicago	0.313	0.462*	0.329	0.402	0.377

*Asterisk denotes cities with multiple teams in one sport, which we averaged together.

As you can see, only Boston/New England has a better overall winning percentage than Philadelphia, though to note, the Eagles just, you know, beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl.

[Also, to note, yes, I'm aware MLS exists, and don't mean to personally offend anyone by the lack of its inclusion here.]