{"id":317885,"date":"2025-10-20T06:14:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T06:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/317885\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T06:14:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T06:14:15","slug":"oldest-teams-to-never-reach-a-championship-mlb-nba-nfl-nhl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/317885\/","title":{"rendered":"Oldest teams to never reach a championship: MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the 2025 MLB postseason<\/a>, the Seattle Mariners<\/a> are actively pursuing their first World Series appearance<\/a>. Which other franchises across major sports leagues have yet to compete at the championship level?<\/p>\n

Check out a breakdown for MLB (World Series), NFL (Super Bowl), NBA (Finals), and NHL (Stanley Cup) below:<\/p>\n

Longest in each league (with inaugural season):<\/p>\n

MLB: Mariners (1977)<\/p>\n

NBA: Clippers (1970)<\/p>\n

NFL: Jaguars<\/a> (1995)<\/p>\n

NHL: Jets<\/a> (1999-00)<\/p>\n

*On the NFL side, the Cleveland Browns<\/a> and Detroit Lions<\/a> are left off this list since both franchises won titles in the pre-Super Bowl era.<\/p>\n

**On the NHL side, the Arizona Coyotes(1979-80) technically have the longest Stanley Cup appearance drought, but don’t currently have a team in the NHL.<\/p>\n

Active teams to never compete in league championship round\/game (with inaugural season):<\/p>\n

MLB: Mariners (1977)<\/p>\n

NBA: Clippers (1970), Hornets<\/a> (1988-89), Timberwolves<\/a> (1989-90), Grizzlies<\/a> (1995-96), Pelicans<\/a> (2002-03)<\/p>\n

NFL: Jaguars (1995),Texans<\/a> (2002)<\/p>\n

NHL: Jets (1999-00), Blue Jackets<\/a> (2000-01), Wild<\/a> (2000-01), Kraken<\/a> (2021-22), Mammoth<\/a> (2024-25)<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2025 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the 2025 MLB postseason, the Seattle Mariners are actively pursuing their first World Series appearance. Which other…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":317886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[159636,3118,3110,5723,2505,8017,22805,3135,3131,3112,1266,1260,3137,1232,293,2999,1288,62,67,132,68,2082,292],"class_list":{"0":"post-317885","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-159636","9":"tag-charlotte-hornets","10":"tag-columbus-blue-jackets","11":"tag-espn","12":"tag-houston-texans","13":"tag-jacksonville-jaguars","14":"tag-la-clippers","15":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","16":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","17":"tag-minnesota-wild","18":"tag-mlb","19":"tag-nba","20":"tag-new-orleans-pelicans","21":"tag-nfl","22":"tag-nhl","23":"tag-seattle-kraken","24":"tag-seattle-mariners","25":"tag-sports","26":"tag-united-states","27":"tag-unitedstates","28":"tag-us","29":"tag-utah-mammoth","30":"tag-winnipeg-jets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115405027086356889","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}