Charlotte ranks as the worst major professional sports city in the United States over the past 25 years, according to a new study from RotoWire.com, a sports betting and fantasy sports website.
The study ranked all 29 US cities with at least two major professional sports franchises using data from 2000 to 2025 across the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL.
Cities were scored on four metrics: championships won at 35% weighting, playoff appearances at 30%, regular-season win rate at 25%, and home attendance at 10%. All scores were normalized per team-season to avoid penalizing smaller markets.
Charlotte scored just 19.2 points. The Carolina Panthers and Charlotte Hornets combined for the lowest composite score of any two-team market in the study.
The Panthers have reached the Super Bowl twice and made the postseason eight times since 2000, but have never won a championship. The Hornets have fared even worse: the franchise has not advanced past the first round of the NBA playoffs since the league returned to Charlotte for the 2004-05 season. The team last made the postseason at all in 2016.
This year could be a turning point for the Hornets. Through 75 games played, the team has a .520 winning percentage and is vying for eligibility for a play-in tournament berth for the playoffs in the Eastern Conference.
Rounding out the cities ranking in the bottom were Minneapolis at 28th with a score of 20.9, followed by Phoenix at 21.6 and Cleveland at 22.9. Two of those three cities have at least one championship to show for the period — the Arizona Diamondbacks won the 2001 World Series and the Cleveland Cavaliers took the 2016 NBA title.
At the top of the rankings, Boston placed at No. 1 with a score of 66.2 — 14 points ahead of second-place Kansas City. The Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics, and Bruins combined for 13 championships since 2000, including six Super Bowl titles for the Patriots alone. Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and Tampa Bay rounded out the top five.
Despite the Queen City’s struggles on the field, both Charlotte and Raleigh have emerged as contenders in the ongoing discussion around MLB expansion. As Carolina Journal has reported, a recent study ranked both cities among the top 10 potential sites for a new MLB franchise, driven by rapid population growth and strong income levels — though stadium feasibility remains a significant hurdle for Charlotte in particular.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has said he hopes to have expansion locations selected by 2029.