Is Washington now the saddest, most miserable and/or cursed U.S. sports city?

No.

But feelings like this seem prevalent here, right?

Yes.

So how do you decide which city is worse?

Multiple methods have sprouted over the past 24 hours, proof as always that if we harnessed the energy of every Internet-powered sports debate for the powers of good, we could come up with cures for several major diseases, or at least for a few minor skin ailments, or at least for “First Take.”

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The most popular method — one employed by my colleague and pal Matt Bonesteel — seems to involve counting total sports seasons spent since a title in the so-called “Big Four” sports. This is lunacy (no offense, Matt), for several reasons. For one thing, sports fans just spent all of June making fun of the NHL for lagging so far behind the other “Big Four” sports in ratings and interest, only to then insist that a fruitless NHL season is just as emotionally damaging to a city’s sports psyche as a fruitless NFL season. If we’re really measuring this by individual title-less seasons, we should assign weight to those seasons by the local importance of each team. One Redskins season without a title would thus be equal to 79 Wizards seasons without a title, and so on.

Also, San Diego — the teary-eyed champions of sadness by this measure — gets credit for fruitless seasons by two NBA teams that haven’t played in San Diego for 40 years. It’s hard to imagine those failed late 1960s campaigns by a team that now represents Houston weigh as heavily on the souls of San Diego sports-radio callers as, say, the Cubs losing in the 1984 NLCS (to the Padres, no less!) does in Chicago. Not that Chicago is cursed. Okay: Does a 1968 San Diego NBA season count for as much heartache as a Bills Super Bowl loss? It just seems like these seasons aren’t measuring exactly the same thing.

Anyhow, San Diego only has two teams now, so it shouldn’t really count, right?

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Well, some would argue that, anyhow. Thus, another popular method counts the longest drought (in years, not seasons) by a city (or geographic region) with at least three teams in the “Big Four” leagues (yes, hockey counts again). By that measure, Minneapolis wins, but only by a few months over Washington. The Twins won a World Series in October 1991, and the Redskins won a Super Bowl in January 1992. So something like 100 days separates D.C. from awful glory in that measurement.

But isn’t the problem in Washington not just a lack of titles, but a lack of even title threats?

Some would argue this, yes. And by that measure, we were already far ahead (or behind) of Cleveland, even before this week.

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As noted in this space a couple years ago, D.C. has the longest conference championship round drought of any city with at least one team in the “Big Four” sports, if you measure it by total opportunities missed. Washington teams have, as a group, competed in 64 straight seasons without making a conference final. That puts us ahead of Cincinnati, Columbus and Winnipeg by this measure. Which — in retrospect — is also a stupid measure.

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I mean, Oklahoma City made it to the conference championship round this year. I don’t know that such an accomplishment is really warming hearts around greater Oklahoma City right now. It’s better than losing in the first round, sure, but Buffalo doesn’t escape a spot on sad sports city lists thanks to many brilliant conference championship round performances. So we should probably forget about this measurement entirely.

It’s weird that Columbus is on that list, by the way, since Ohio State wins stuff all the time.

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Indeed. In fact, as I suggested on Twitter late Sunday night, it’s weird that no one ever mentions the men’s basketball titles won by Maryland and Georgetown when talking about Washington’s sports sadness.

“It’s because not everyone in D.C. loves the Terps or Hoyas, duh, haha you’re stupid” people shouted at me in response.

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Which is true, but dang, it’s not like everyone in D.C. loves the Wizards, either. Of area basketball fans, 29 percent chose the Wizards as their favorite NBA team in a 2011 Washington Post survey. So do Wizards/Bullets titles not count either? Anyhow, if you’re a Terps fan, and you celebrated a national championship this century in one of the country’s premier sporting events, you’re not allowed to feel cursed. Sorry. Even if you didn’t get a parade down some grand D.C. boulevard.

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What about D.C. United?

Yeah, seriously, what about D.C. United? If you’re a huge United fan, you’re the last thing from cursed. Go hang out with the Terps fans.

Yeah! And what about the Kastles?????

Nah.

This does seem complicated though.

Right? If you’re a D.C. fan who still roots for the Orioles, do you get extra loserdom credit? If you live in Laurel and root for the Caps and Wizards but also the Ravens, are you exempted from D.C. heartbreak? Is the only real measure that parade down Constitution Avenue? Can you imagine how bad the traffic would be before that parade? I can already imagine the piles of garbage in the Metro trash cans. Ugh.

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Anyhow, the upshot is that people will start feeling sorry for San Diegans and Washingtonians now, right?

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Ha!

Look, there’s a certain emotional resonance to a long title drought in a place that seems down on its luck. That’s why this Cleveland thing mattered, and that’s why San Diego and Washington are about the least apt replacements. It’s hard to feel sorry for anyone living in San Diego. Put aside the weather; just focus on the beer. And Washington — for reasons outside our control — doesn’t rank super high on the sympathy meter, either.

We live in a massive, sprawling place that crosses multiple state borders. A place whose national image involves not Washingtonians at all, but a bunch of people in suits who come here from other states. A place that is used as a punch line or epithet in countless speeches every two years. And a place whose economy has been humming pretty good for most of this century. None of this has anything to do with the average Caps or Nats fan, but you know just like I do that if the Nats win the World Series in October, social media will not light up with folks from Texas and Iowa and Wisconsin saying “Good for Washington, that place deserves something nice like this.”

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That’s why the LeBron James thing has never been a great comparison for the Kevin Durant thing, at least not if you take a step back. No one will ever write a book about Durant called “The Whore of Seat Pleasant.” There wouldn’t be essays about how Durant’s return home is bigger for Washington than it is for the Wizards. Or examinations about Durant’s impact on the local economy, as in this “LeConomics” one. This isn’t to say either town is better or worse, as a place to live or as a place to follow sports. They’re just different.

Still, it’s been a while for Washington sports fans.