The 29 most hopeless fan bases in professional sports

9. Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams

Last Championship: 1999

Last winning season: 2003

It’s tough to draw the line at exactly who it is that’s suffering when it comes to the Rams organization. This is, after all, a team that has caused pain both on the field and off (see: perpetual relocation) over the course of what should be a stories NFL history.

On one hand, there is the city of St. Louis, from which the organization was lifted from by owner Stan Kroenke this past winter. They certainly have multiple tiers of grief and gripe, having suffered through over a decade of directionless management and disastrous results. In 21 years in St. Louis, the Rams posted losing efforts in 16 seasons, including three year run that featured a 6-42 stretch from 2007-2009, the worst three year stretch of football in the Super Bowl era.

However, there was the heyday of 1999, when they became one of — if not the— most unlikely Super Bowl winning franchise ever, and the subsequent ‘Greatest Show on Turf’ days that surrounded it to pad those blows. The people of L.A. seldom even got that far.

Despite being a regularly successful team through the 1970s and 80s, the Rams fell into peril in the early 90s, which caused them to depart from Los Angeles in the first place. Counting the crossover to St. Louis, the team had losing records from 1990 thru 1998, bringing their special breed of incompetence across time zones.

What, above all else, are they bringing back with them to southern California? A nine-year losing record streak.

Next: 8. Washington Nationals/Montreal Expos