There are 122 teams across the four major American professional sports, meaning there are just enough to wet your appetite in whatever geographical, meaningless or diehard way you please but also enough that some can get lost in the cutthroat shuffle.
Which team is the most forgotten by fans and the media in each of those leagues?
MLB: Colorado Rockies
This list was made for the poor Rockies. The franchise resides in the nation’s most beautiful state, plays in a gorgeous downtown ballpark and has produced some phenomenal offensive talent over the last two decades, but remains a massive afterthought to your afterthought.
They’re the team that everyone notices buried in the NL West standings with a 40-55 record in late July and thinks “Ohhhh yeah, the Rockies still exist”. It’s through no fault of their own as the team actually has decent fans and good management, but is destroyed by their isolated location (Kansas City is the nearest MLB team at 600 miles away) and time zone.
NHL: Florida Panthers
There really isn’t much to say when your home games draw less people than a professional backgammon match:
NFL: Tennessee Titans
Selecting a forgotten NFL team is significantly more challenging than the other major leagues. With the $7.2 billion team-distributed revenue pot, prevalence of fantasy football and a schedule that’s one-fifth the length of the NBA and NHL and one-tenth of the MLB, it’s hard to simply forget teams.
As much as we wanted to pick the Raiders, the downtrodden franchise still gets national attention, albeit mocking attention at their expense, and somehow remain in the league-wide conversation for most of the year. The Titans became the default pick, with the selection mostly attributed to recent misery, residency in the small market-laden AFC South and failure to routinely appear in marquee television time slots.
NBA: Milwaukee Bucks
The Bucks narrowly edged the Magic for this distinguished honor. Contrary to popular belief, the Bucks have seen decent success over the last couple decades, with nine playoff appearances in the last 16 seasons. Granted, they’ve only advanced beyond the First Round once (2000-2001) and have made the playoffs four times despite having a .500 record or worse. So, why are they forgotten?
The Milwaukee market is one of the league’s smallest, resting comfortably among the likes of Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Memphis and New Orleans, and while it’s difficult to argue that’s what makes them forgotten, it certainly doesn’t help. They haven’t had a big-time star since Ray Allen was dealt to Seattle in 2003 (no, Michael Redd was not a big-time star) and, even with some good young talent and a headline-grabbing coach, they remain an afterthought.
Photos Courtesy: USA Today Sports (Panthers, Bucks), Getty Images (Titans), AP (Rockies)
