Which Cities Could End Their Championship Droughts in 2024?

Last year saw the cities of Dallas, Denver, Kansas City and Las Vegas celebrate championships in the big four sports. That was the second championship in consecutive years for Denver and the second in four years for Kansas City, but it ended a drought of 12 years without a championship for the Dallas metro area.

It also represented the first ever championship for a big-four team from Las Vegas, ending a drought of 118 years since the city's foundation -- or a drought of 4.543 billion years since the formation of the earth if you're feeling dramatic.

Which cities are likely to end their big-four championship droughts in 2024? RotoWire's futures pages for the Super Bowl, Stanley Cup, NBA Finals and World Series can help us answer that question. First, though, we'll have to define what a drought is.

Which Cities Can Actually Claim To Be in a Championship Drought?

While Boston fans may feel that their four-year gap without a title qualifies as a drought given that they averaged 1.3 years between titles from 2002 to 2019, we're going to be a little more objective here. For the purposes of this article, we'll call it a drought if a metro area has a longer than expected wait between titles, which may be an overly-liberal usage of the word.

But what is the "expected" wait? It depends on how many teams call that metro area home. If titles were divided evenly, each team in a given league should win once every 30 or 32 years, depending on league size. That means a one-sport town should expect a parade every 31 years, and anything longer is a drought. More teams means more chances at a title in any given year, and therefore a shorter wait between parades.

The following table demonstrates how long the expected wait between titles is depending on how many big-four teams call that metro area home:

With that chart in hand, we can answer the question of which cities can actually claim to be suffering from a relative lack of recent titles. Here are the cities that can make that dubious claim, along with a "shame factor" --  a totally real stat I just made up which is computed by dividing a city's actual drought length by their expected drought length -- to measure just how shameful their drought is. Note that I've excluded cities with only one team from this chart in order to capture city-wide rather than team-specific failings.

Chicago, Miami and Indianapolis all have a shame factor fairly close to 1.0, denoting an average-length title drought and thus an average amount of shame. But eight cities are in the midst of droughts that have lasted at least twice as long as they should, ranging from the trophy-less trio of Buffalo, Charlotte and Nashville to the nine-team megatropolis of New York, a city which trails only Minneapolis in the all-important Shame Factor among cities that have previously tasted success.

Which Droughts Could End in 2024?

Using RotoWire's aforementioned Futures pages, we can examine every city's odds of winning at least one big-four title this season. For a look at the best title odds by city, scroll to the end of this article, but for now, here's a look at just those 11 cities we highlighted as having genuine title droughts in the previous section:

*As this list was compiled using the best available odds, the percentages for each city will skew slightly optimistic, but the relative order of the cities shouldn't change.

New York's 12-year title drought has a better than 1-in-4 chance of ending in 2024, according to the bookies. It helps to have nine teams, though New York ranks a mere sixth in metro areas most likely to bring home a title this calendar year, behind a pair of four-sports towns and even one with just two teams. (More on that in a minute.) The Big Apple's hopes are pinned primarily on the Yankees, who the books peg as the American League favorite following their trade for Juan Soto. New York also has a reasonable chance of hosting a Stanley Cup parade this summer, with both the Rangers (+1100) and Devils (+1800) in the mix. For what it's worth, the Newark Devils are as much a part of New York as the East Rutherford Giants for the purposes of this piece.

As mentioned previously, Miami's "drought" probably isn't long enough to generate much sympathy, but it will be 11 years in June since LeBron James and co. defeated the Spurs in the 2013 NBA Finals. Cities with one team in all four major sports should expect a title every eight years, so Miami fans have some claim to being overdue. The tropical city's best hopes of ending its drought will come on the ice this season, according to the oddsmakers, though the Dolphins have a legitimate shot at a title as well. The books have them joint-sixth among the remaining NFL teams despite the fact that they're merely the AFC's sixth seed and have to face the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium this weekend.

Buffalo's fans have never had their passion rewarded with a parade, which is probably good news for all tables in the area. The Sabres aren't likely to change that this season, as they sit 14th in the Eastern Conference, but the Bills have a legitimate chance of making this their year. They've secured the second seed in the AFC and will get a date with the Steelers this weekend, the team with the longest Super Bowl Odds among the 14 NFL playoff teams.

Phoenix's 23-year drought is nearly three times as long as it ought to be for a city with four sports teams, but they're the last city that has at least a 10 percent chance of ending its drought this season. Interestingly, it's not the defending National League pennant winners, the Diamondbacks (+3500), who have the city's best shot, with the oddsmakers agreeing with the general consensus that last year's playoff run was more a Cinderella story than the start of a dynasty. The Cardinals have long since been eliminated, and the Coyotes are a non-factor, but the books have the Suns as the sixth favorite to win the NBA Finals.

Minneapolis/St. Paul, Charlotte and Detroit all have between a five and 10 percent chance at ending their cities lengthy droughts, with the Carolina Hurricanes (who sit in a five-way tie for second-best Stanley Cup odds) the best individual hope for any of those metro areas. Minnesota fans have both the Wolves and Twins to root for as teams who should make the playoffs but will need some magic while they get there, while the Lions are in the unusual position of being Detroit's only hope. You can also get +100000 on the 3-35 Pistons if you enjoy the smell money makes when it burns.

Residents of Chicago, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Nashville can be pretty sure that their droughts will last at least another year, however, with Chicago's three percent chance at a parade leading the pack. That's an embarrassingly low mark for the Windy City, as it's home to five teams, while the other three all contain just two big-four franchises. Chicago's drought only barely meets the qualifications for this article, but the fact that Chicago's five franchises have combined to win a single playoff round since the Cubs won the World Series in 2016 (and none since 2017) means that this is a drought which has been particularly deep, if not particularly long.

Which Cities Will Have Something to Celebrate in 2024?

We've taken a look at whether the cities which have been waiting the longest for a trophy have any hope at parading in 2024, but what about other cities? The following table shows the 10 cities most likely to win at least one big-four title this year, according to the best available odds for each team:

Four cities -- Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston and Denver -- have at least a 30 percent chance at a parade this season, and all of them are home to the bookies' favorite in one of the four major sports. The Avalanche have the best odds in the NHL at +750 but don't even have the best odds within their own city. All of those cities have at least four teams, though, with Los Angeles' eight total teams making their first-place ranking on this list somewhat less impressive.

The most remarkable city on the list has to be Baltimore, which edges out New York for the fifth spot despite having two teams to New York's nine. The Ravens boast the second-best odds in the NFL after earning the top seed in the AFC, while the upstart Orioles (+1800) have the seventh-best odds in baseball — not bad for a team that went 52-110 as recently as 2021. Milwaukee also punches above its weight, ranking ninth despite having just two teams, but that's almost exclusively due to the Bucks, with the Brewers (+5500) not seen as a serious threat.