The 29 most hopeless fan bases in professional sports

CLEVELAND, OH - DECEMBER 13, 2015: Cleveland Browns fans hold up signs reading 'HELP' during a game against the San Francisco 49ers on December 13, 2015 at FirstEnergy Stadium in Cleveland, Ohio. Cleveland won 24-10. (Photo by Nick Cammett/Diamond Images/Getty Images) /

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Sep 26, 2015; Chicago, IL, USA; Chicago Cubs fans pose for a picture in front of the Ernie Banks statue before the game between the Chicago Cubs and Pittsburgh Pirates at Wrigley Field. Mandatory Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports /

2. Chicago Cubs

Last championship: 1908

Last winning season: 2015

For now, take 2016 and throw it out. You can even take last season’s resurrection and throw it out as well. Because there is no team in sports who is more synonymous with losing than the Chicago Cubs.

And it’s not because they’re always the worst team, nor because they never have talent to display or fanbase to follow them. Quite the contrary, really. The Cubs have been to the postseason seven times in the past 30 or so years, which is a respectable rate. All the while, they have dedicated and devout fanbase — one that clamors for Wrigley Field’s doors to open each spring and for them to be able to “root, root, root for the Cubbies” again.

However, there is no team that has suffered for longer — and in more discouraging ways — than the Cubs. It’s been 108 years since the Cubs last won a World Series, by and far the longest drought in professional sports. Even if the Cubs had won the last World Series they reached in 1945, this current spell would still be the longest in the game.

In that time, the team has seen legends such as Ernie Banks, Ryne Sandberg, Andre Dawson, and Ferguson Jenkins come and go. Sammy Sosa led an all-out assault on the home run record books, and Kerry Wood followed suit on the mound. But all the while, “maybe next year” has been the final words for the team that has grown to be dubbed the ‘Lovable Losers’.

Four of their last five eliminations from the postseason have been at the hands of sweeps. And when it was not done quickly, it happened excruciatingly, in the form of a loss at home to the Florida Marlins, who took both games six and seven at Wrigley.

So while things are looking indisputably up for the Cubs right now, it is beyond understandable why longtime fans of the team — and baseball pundits in general — are taking a “I’ll believe it when I see it, and may not believe it then” approach to the odds of the 2016 Cubs to break the longest, and seemingly most unbreakable, streak in all of sports.

Next: 1. Cleveland Browns