An imperfect season (more accurately, an anti-perfect season or a perfectly bad season) is defined as a team losing all of its games. It is the antithesis of a perfect season, and is often referred to as such in a tongue-in-cheek manner. This ignominy has been suffered eleven times in professional American football, six times in arena football, thrice in professional Canadian football, once each in American professional lacrosse and box lacrosse, more than twenty-five times in major Australian football leagues, seven times in top-level rugby league, at least twice in top-level rugby union, and twice in English county cricket.
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Because of the short schedules of college and professional football seasons, there is a possibility that a very bad team will not manage to win any games. Before overtime was used consistently, teams might tie a game without winning one; these are generally counted in lists of winless seasons.
| Season | Team | Wins | Losses | Ties | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | Detroit Lions | 0 | 16 | 0 | Most losses in a single season. Detroit was the first non-expansion team to lose every game in a full season since World War II. |
| 1982 | Baltimore Colts | 0 | 8 | 1 | Strike shortened season. Afterwards, the Colts drafted future Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway with the first pick in the 1983 NFL Draft, but due to protests from Elway before and after the draft, had his rights traded to the Denver Broncos a week later. |
| 1976 | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 0 | 14 | 0 | Team made league debut in 1976. Went on to lose the first 12 games of the 1977 season as well, to start 0-26-0 as a franchise. |
| 1960 | Dallas Cowboys | 0 | 11 | 1 | Team made league debut in 1960 |
| 1944 | Brooklyn Tigers | 0 | 10 | 0 | |
| 1944 | Card-Pitt | 0 | 10 | 0 | Merger between Chicago Cardinals & Pittsburgh Steelers due to player shortages during World War II; the Steelers themselves merged with the Philadelphia Eagles the previous year for the same reasons. The Cardinals (now in the Phoenix area as the Arizona Cardinals) and Steelers eventually played each other in Super Bowl XLIII 64 seasons later. |
| 1943 | Chicago Cardinals | 0 | 10 | 0 | |
| 1942 | Detroit Lions | 0 | 11 | 0 | |
| 1934 | Cincinnati Reds | 0 | 8 | 0 | Folded before the season was over. |
| 1925 | Columbus Tigers | 0 | 9 | 0 | |
| 1922 | Columbus Panhandles | 0 | 8 | 0 |
The Rochester Jeffersons went a combined 0-21-2 over four seasons from 1922 to 1925, but in none of those seasons did they ever play more than seven games.
| Season | Team | Wins | Losses | Ties | Remarks |
| 2009 | St. Louis Rams | 1 | 15 | 0 | Only win came against the Detroit Lions (8th game) who ended up 2-14 |
| 2007 | Miami Dolphins | 1 | 15 | 0 | Only win was against Baltimore Ravens in OT during Week 15 (14th game) |
| 2001 | Carolina Panthers | 1 | 15 | 0 | Became first team to lose 15 straight games in same season, only win was in opener against the Minnesota Vikings. Did not earn the number one pick in the 2002 NFL Draft by virtue of the expansion Houston Texans automatically having the first pick. Just two years later they ended up being a field goal short of a Super Bowl title. |
| 2000 | San Diego Chargers | 1 | 15 | 0 | Only win came in 12th game vs. Kansas City 17-16 |
| 1996 | New York Jets | 1 | 15 | 0 | Only win came in 9th game vs. Arizona 31-21 |
| 1991 | Indianapolis Colts | 1 | 15 | 0 | Only win came in 10th game 28-27 at the New York Jets |
| 1990 | New England Patriots | 1 | 15 | 0 | Only win came in 2nd game 16-14 at Indianapolis; several players involved in sexual harassment of Boston Globe sportswriter Lisa Olson |
| 1989 | Dallas Cowboys | 1 | 15 | 0 | Only win in sixth game versus vs Washington Redskins |
| 1982 | Houston Oilers | 1 | 8 | 0 | Strike shortened season |
| 1980 | New Orleans Saints | 1 | 15 | 0 | Only win came in 15th game 21-20 at the New York Jets |
| 1973 | Houston Oilers | 1 | 13 | 0 | |
| 1972 | Houston Oilers | 1 | 13 | 0 | |
| 1971 | Buffalo Bills | 1 | 13 | 0 | Only win in eleventh game against New England Patriots. |
| 1969 | Chicago Bears | 1 | 13 | 0 | Only win came vs. Steelers, lost coin toss to Steelers to draft future Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw with the number one pick. |
| 1969 | Pittsburgh Steelers | 1 | 13 | 0 | Won first game 16-13 vs. Detroit; first season for Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Chuck Noll & defensive tackle “Mean Joe” Greene. |
| 1968 | Buffalo Bills | 1 | 12 | 1 | American Football League Drafted O. J. Simpson with the first pick in the ensuing draft. |
| 1967 | Atlanta Falcons | 1 | 12 | 1 | Only win 21-20 against Minnesota Vikings. |
| 1966 | New York Giants | 1 | 12 | 1 | |
| 1962 | Oakland Raiders | 1 | 13 | 0 | American Football League Only win came against the Boston Patriots in the final week of the season |
| 1962 | Los Angeles Rams | 1 | 12 | 1 | |
| 1961 | Washington Redskins | 1 | 12 | 1 | Only win in final game against second-year Cowboys. |
| 1960 | Washington Redskins | 1 | 9 | 2 | |
| 1958 | Green Bay Packers | 1 | 10 | 1 | Packers hired Vince Lombardi as coach following the season |
| 1953 | Chicago Cardinals | 1 | 10 | 1 | Only win in final game against Chicago Bears. |
| 1952 | Dallas Texans | 1 | 11 | 0 | Successor to New York Yanks owned by Ted Collins. Only NFL season; game against the Detroit Lions transferred to that team’s home field. |
| 1951 | New York Yanks | 1 | 9 | 2 | |
| 1950 | Baltimore Colts | 1 | 11 | 0 | Consecutive seasons with record of 2-22-0 worst until 1972/1973 Oilers. |
| 1949 | Baltimore Colts | 1 | 11 | 0 | |
| 1949 | New York Bulldogs | 1 | 10 | 1 | |
| 1946 | Detroit Lions | 1 | 10 | 0 | |
| 1945 | Chicago Cardinals | 1 | 9 | 0 | |
| 1941 | Pittsburgh Steelers | 1 | 9 | 1 | |
| 1940 | Philadelphia Eagles | 1 | 10 | 0 | Only win in penultimate game against Pittsburgh Steelers 7-0. |
| 1939 | Chicago Cardinals | 1 | 10 | 0 | |
| 1939 | Philadelphia Eagles | 1 | 9 | 1 | |
| 1937 | Cleveland Rams | 1 | 10 | 0 | |
| 1936 | Philadelphia Eagles | 1 | 11 | 0 | Lost 11 consecutive games after winning opener 10-7 against New York Giants. |
| 1933 | Chicago Cardinals | 1 | 9 | 1 | |
| 1931 | Frankford Yellow Jackets | 1 | 6 | 1 | |
| 1930 | Minneapolis Red Jackets | 1 | 7 | 1 | |
| 1930 | Newark Tornadoes | 1 | 10 | 1 | |
| 1929 | Buffalo Bisons | 1 | 7 | 1 | Only win came in final game of season. Played no games in 1928; previous season (1927), team went 0-5-0. |
| 1929 | Minneapolis Red Jackets | 1 | 9 | 0 | |
| 1927 | Duluth Eskimos | 1 | 8 | 0 | |
| 1927 | Dayton Triangles | 1 | 6 | 1 | |
| 1926 | Canton Bulldogs | 1 | 9 | 3 | |
| 1923 | Oorang Indians | 1 | 10 | 0 | |
| 1921 | Columbus Panhandles | 1 | 8 | 0 | American Professional Football Association[1] |
Source: Worst NFL Teams of all time (ESPN) [2]
The short length of seasons in arena football makes imperfect seasons quite possible. The following teams have gone through an Arena Football League season without winning a game:
| Year | Team | Played | Wins | Losses | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | Maryland Commandos | 4 | 0 | 4 | Relocated to Washington, D.C. after season ended |
| 1991 | Columbus Thunderbolts | 10 | 0 | 10 | Moved to Cleveland the following year. |
| 1992 | New Orleans Night | 10 | 0 | 10 | Team ceased operations after season. |
| 1994 | Milwaukee Mustangs | 12 | 0 | 12 | First winless team to remain in same city during following season. Went to 10-4 in 1996 |
| 1996 | Memphis Pharaohs | 14 | 0 | 14 | Relocated twice, firstly as the Portland Forest Dragons from 1997 and then as the Oklahoma Wranglers. Folded in 2001. |
| 2003 | Carolina Cobras | 16 | 0 | 16 | Went to 6-10 the following season. |
The United Football League has had, to date, one winless season. In their inaugural season, the 2009 New York Sentinels lost all six of their games. The team, which was a traveling team that played games in Hartford, Long Island and New Jersey (and had intended to play a game in New York City but backed out), fired its head coach and settled permanently in Hartford to become the Hartford Colonials. Under the UFL's double round robin format, only one team can finish any particular season entirely with losses, since every team plays each other at least twice. The 2009 California Redwoods lost all their games except their two games against the Sentinels; they relocated from San Francisco to Sacramento (as the Sacramento Mountain Lions) for 2010. Both the Colonials and Mountain Lions made improvements on their records the following season.
Since non-professional, semi-pro and minor league teams are inherently unstable in their membership, it is far easier for seasons in which a teams wins no games to occur. In the case of non-professional teams, neither mechanisms to force a team to shut down against its will, nor effective drafts or revenue sharing mechanisms to distribute talent evenly among teams typically exist, leading to poor teams accumulating multiple winless seasons. Five teams in football history have failed to score a single point in an entire season; all played eight games or less.[3] There are at least twelve teams who have accumulated losing streaks of 20 games or more; there are also four teams who have accumulated seasons of all losses with at least 13 games.[4] In the case of minor professional football, particularly in indoor football leagues, winless seasons often result from an owner's abandonment or other financial hardship. The American Indoor Football Association had at least one winless team in five out of six seasons; it also had at least one team with one win or less in all six seasons, including one team (the Ghostriders/Ghostchasers) that, despite two reorganizations, lost every game in their two-year existence. The National Indoor Football League went its first three seasons without a winless season, but beginning in 2004, at least one team went winless every year until the league's collapse in 2007. Though the Spring Football League had two teams with winless seasons (the Los Angeles Dragons and the Miami Tropics), and the Stars Football League had one such team (the traveling 2011 Michigan Coyotes), they are almost never mentioned in discussions of perfect and perfectly bad seasons, since those teams only played two games each before the seasons were cut short.
The Canadian Football League currently has a regular season of eighteen games; from 1952 to 1985 it was generally sixteen games as with the current NFL season, though those teams in the Eastern Division played only fourteen as late as 1973.[5] Consequently, especially given the much smaller number of teams playing, there have been fewer imperfect or nearly imperfect seasons than in the National Football League, with the exception of the first decade or so when fewer games were played.
| Season | Team | Games | Wins | Losses | Ties | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Hamilton Tiger-Cats | 18 | 1 | 17 | 0 | Most losses in a CFL season |
| 1964 | Winnipeg Blue Bombers | 16 | 1 | 14 | 1 | |
| 1959 | Saskatchewan Rough Riders | 16 | 1 | 15 | 0 | |
| 1954 | British Columbia Lions | 16 | 1 | 15 | 0 | Expansion team: most recent of present-day CFL teams |
| 1949 | Hamilton Wildcats | 12 | 0 | 12 | 0 | Merged with the Hamilton Tigers for 1950 season |
| 1948 | Hamilton Wildcats | 12 | 1 | 10 | 1 | |
| 1946 | Hamilton Wildcats | 12 | 0 | 10 | 2 | |
| 1941 | Montreal Royals | 6 | 0 | 6 | 0 | Did not resume when Canadian football recommenced after World War II. |
| 1941 | Vancouver Grizzlies | 8 | 1 | 7 | 0 | Did not resume when Canadian football recommenced after World War II. |
| 1940 | Montreal Royals | 6 | 1 | 5 | 0 | |
| 1939 | Montreal Royals | 6 | 0 | 5 | 1 | |
| 1938 | Edmonton Eskimos | 8 | 0 | 8 | 0 | |
| 1938 | Montreal Royals | 6 | 0 | 6 | 0 |
| Season | Team | Games | Wins | Losses | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Hamilton Tiger-Cats | 18 | 2 | 16 | |
| 1988 | Ottawa Rough Riders | 18 | 2 | 16 | First CFL team to lose 16 games. Franchise disbanded in 1996 |
| 1982 | Montreal Alouettes | 16 | 2 | 14 | |
| 1981 | Toronto Argonauts | 16 | 2 | 14 | |
| 1980 | Saskatchewan Rough Riders | 16 | 2 | 14 | Successive seasons with combined record of 4-28 |
| 1979 | Saskatchewan Rough Riders | 16 | 2 | 14 | |
| 1970 | Winnipeg Blue Bombers | 16 | 2 | 14 | |
| 1967 | Montreal Alouettes | 14 | 2 | 12 | |
| 1963 | Edmonton Eskimos | 16 | 2 | 14 | |
| 1952 | Montreal Alouettes | 12 | 2 | 10 | |
| 1949 | Winnipeg Blue Bombers | 12 | 2 | 10 | |
| 1948 | Winnipeg Blue Bombers | 12 | 2 | 10 |
Seasons in the National Lacrosse League and its predecessors Major Indoor Lacrosse League and Eagle Pro Box Lacrosse League have varied from eight games in the first years of competition to sixteen games today, with the extension having been gradual.
The Charlotte Cobras, who played only one season before folding, are the only team in the history of the NLL to have not won a game in a season. In their sole 1996 season they played twelve games and lost them all, before folding. The Syracuse Smash in 2000 finished 1-11 and the relocated Ottawa Rebel finished 1-13 the following year.
In Major League Lacrosse, the season has consisted of either twelve or fourteen games since the league was formed in 2001.
The only winless season in Major League Lacrosse has been by the 2006 Chicago Machine, who went 0-12 and lost an MLL record thirteen consecutive games; the Machine eventually moved to Rochester. The New Jersey Pride in 2004 and the Bridgeport Barrage in the previous year also finished with a 1-11 record.
In the other major professional sports leagues of North America - Major League Soccer and its predecessors, the National Basketball Association and the Women’s National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League and Major League Baseball - it is virtually impossible that a team could lose all its games, for the simple reason that there are many more games in the regular season than in football or lacrosse.
Since it began in 1996, the Major League Soccer schedule has consisted of between twenty-six and thirty-four games.
No team in Major League Soccer has ever come close to losing all its games: the most losses in a MLS season is 24 from 32 games by the Kansas City Wizards in 1999, the year when the league used shootouts to decide all tied games. Since shootouts were abandoned the following season, the most losses by a Major League Soccer team has been 22 by both Real Salt Lake and Chivas USA in 2005. Chivas also holds the MLS record for fewest wins in a season, winning only four of its thirty-two games, whilst Real Salt Lake in the same year was second worst with only five wins.
Since 1967, the National Basketball Association’s regular season schedule has been 82 games long. Originally it was 48 games long, but this was gradually expanded to an 82-game schedule by the beginning of the 1960s.
The 1973 76ers hold the record for the lowest winning percentage of any team in an NBA season, winning only 9 out of 82 games for a winning percentage of .110. This record has been threatened by the 1993 Dallas Mavericks and the 1998 Denver Nuggets, both of whom went 11-71 for a winning percentage of .134 and at various points looked likely to break the 76ers record for fewest wins in a season.[6] The Nuggets, for instance, were on track at the beginning of February 1998 to post a 7-75 record. In the original Basketball Association of America, the Providence Steamrollers in 1947-48 won only six games of forty-eight for a winning percentage of .125.
The 1990-91 Sacramento Kings managed a near-imperfect road season. They won only one of 41 away games, 87-82 against the Washington Bullets on November 20, 1990[7]. Overall, the Kings lost 43 consecutive road games before beating the Orlando Magic 95-93 on November 23, 1991.
The 1996–97 Boston Celtics managed only one win in 24 games against other members of the Atlantic Division, in its last such game against the Philadelphia 76ers[8]. They overall lost 24 successive games against other Atlantic Division teams after beating the New Jersey Nets 112 to 106 on 19 April, 1996[9].
Since its formation in 1997, the WNBA regular season has been gradually increased from 30 to the current 34-game schedule.
No team has gone through a WNBA season without winning a game; the fewest wins in a WNBA season has been three by the 1998 Washington Mystics in their first season, and the 2011 Tulsa Shock. Two other expansion WNBA teams, the 2008 Atlanta Dream at 4-30 and the 2006 Chicago Sky at 5-29 have come closest to this record, whilst the worst record by an established WNBA franchise has been 6-28, or a winning percentage of .176, by the 2005 Charlotte Sting.
The National Hockey League’s schedule, like that of the NBA, consists of 82 games. Each game is given two points for a win, one point for a tie, and no points for a regulation loss. Since 1997, one point has also been given for overtime losses; the introduction of a shootout during the 2004-05 lockout eliminated ties. From 1997 to 2004, NHL standings tables had four columns: W-L-T-OTL. From 2005 to 2010, it was reduced to three, W-L-OTL; in 2011, a "regulation/overtime win" column (ROW) was added, which excludes shootout wins; it does not change the point totals, but does serve as the first tiebreaker.
No team has ever come close to losing every game in an NHL season; the worst record is by the 1974–75 Washington Capitals who went 8-67-5 (8 wins, 67 losses, 5 ties). The 1974-75 Capitals and 1992–93 Ottawa Senators hold the record for fewest wins on the road with one. The NHL played an 80-game season in 1974–75, whereas in 1992–93 the schedule consisted of 84 games, thus giving the Senators the percentage record for worst road record. The Senators also set a record by losing their first 38 consecutive road games. (The Senators' road statistics include a neutral-site game played in Hamilton, Ontario, in which the Senators were considered the road team.)
Since the early 1960s, the schedule of both leagues of Major League Baseball has been 162 games long; before that, it was 154 games long. With such a schedule it is practically impossible for a team to finish with a winless season.
The closest to a perfectly imperfect season in the National League was the infamous 1899 Cleveland Spiders season, who won only twenty games and lost a record 134 games after its roster was looted by the owners of the team, who stacked the best players onto the St. Louis Perfectos. The Spiders are, to this day, the only major league team to have finished a season below the Mendoza line (.200) in win percentage. Since 1900, four other teams have come closest to imperfection, the 1916 Philadelphia A's went 36-117, the 1935 Boston Braves went 38-115, the 1962 New York Mets went 40-120 and the 2003 Detroit Tigers went 43-119.
Owing to the short schedules and restricted talent pool[10] of Australian rules football leagues, winless seasons (the term “imperfect season” never being used in Australia) are more common and better documented than in any other professional or semi-professional team sport. In the major state leagues of Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, the home-and-away season was originally between twelve and sixteen games long, and is now between twenty and twenty-two games; thus a very bad team could easily fail to win any games.
In the Australian Football League, until 1990 called the Victorian Football League, seasons have ranged from fourteen games per team in its initial season and the shortened wartime seasons from 1916-18 and 1942-43 up to 22 games since 1970. As a result of this, exceptionally bad teams were quite capable of not winning a single game in a season during the competition’s early and middle periods up to the extension of the season to twenty games in 1968. Since then, the longer season has prevented any completely winless seasons, though several teams have come distinctly close, either through being lucky to achieve their only win or being on target for a winless season when they won.
| Season | Team | Wins | Losses | Draws | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1897 | St. Kilda | 0 | 14 | 0 | Lost first 48 games before beating Melbourne on a protest. |
| 1898 | St. Kilda | 0 | 17 | 0 | Season expanded to seventeen games with sectional matches. |
| 1899 | St. Kilda | 0 | 17 | 0 | Record low percentage of 23.2 for seventeen games (scored only 323 points and conceded 1,391). |
| 1902 | St. Kilda | 0 | 17 | 0 | Had won only two games out of 99 at end of season, and lost every away game until June 8, 1903 at the Lake Oval. |
| 1913 | University | 0 | 18 | 0 | Won only one of last 70 games from Round 3, 1911. |
| 1914 | University | 0 | 18 | 0 | Lost last 51 matches and disbanded at end of year due to World War I. Minimum losing margin of 15 points largest for any winless VFL team. |
| 1919 | Melbourne | 0 | 16 | 0 | Withdrew from competition during war due to opposition to player payments[11] |
| 1926 | North Melbourne | 0 | 17 | 1 | Lost four games by less than a goal. |
| 1928 | Hawthorn | 0 | 18 | 0 | Lost 43 of 44 games up to Round 6, 1929. |
| 1931 | North Melbourne | 0 | 18 | 0 | Lost 33 games in a row to Round 2, 1932. Won only ten games in six seasons from 1926 to 1931. |
| 1934 | North Melbourne | 0 | 18 | 0 | Lost 35 games in a row (eight were by less than a goal) before winning against Footscray in Round 16, 1935 |
| 1950 | Hawthorn | 0 | 18 | 0 | Lost 22 games in a row to Round 2, 1951 |
| 1964 | Fitzroy | 0 | 18 | 0 | Lost 27 games in a row before beating Footscray in Round 2, 1965, but lost by one point to Carlton and North Melbourne. Won only seven of 89 games between Round 9, 1962 and Round 7, 1967 |
| Season | Team | Wins | Losses | Draws | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1972 | North Melbourne | 1 | 21 | 0 | Only win against South Melbourne in seventeenth round. |
| 1972 | South Melbourne | 2 | 20 | 0 | Lost last sixteen games, and overall lost twenty-nine in a row before beating Geelong in Round 14, 1973. |
| 1975 | South Melbourne | 2 | 20 | 0 | Won twice against Geelong but beat no other team. |
| 1981 | Melbourne | 1 | 21 | 0 | Only win at Western Oval in Round 3 with after-siren goal from Mark Jackson. Closest loss in last nineteen games seventeen points against Richmond |
| 1981 | Footscray | 2 | 20 | 0 | Only wins against Essendon in Round 6 (after which the Bombers won fifteen straight) and Melbourne in Round 13. |
| 1986 | St. Kilda | 2 | 20 | 0 | Did not win until thirteenth week against Melbourne. |
| 1993 | Sydney Swans | 1 | 19 | 0 | Reduced schedule due to demands from AFL Players Association. Lost 26 consecutive games before only win against Melbourne in Round 13 (actually twelfth game due to bye). |
| 1995 | Fitzroy | 2 | 20 | 0 | Lost final fourteen games after two wins in three games over St. Kilda and Adelaide, and overall lost 21 on end. |
| 1996 | Fitzroy | 1 | 21 | 0 | Last season before merging to form the Brisbane Lions. Only win in Round 8 against Fremantle by 31 points. |
| 2000 | St. Kilda | 2 | 19 | 1 | |
| 2001 | Fremantle | 2 | 20 | 0 | Was 0-17 and generally predicted to finish with the first 0-22 record before a huge upset against Hawthorn in Round 18. |
Both St. Kilda in 1985 and Port Adelaide in 2011 has a record of two wins and nineteen losses before winning their last game; in the Saints’ case in a huge comeback upset over second-placed Footscray.
From the time of the formation of the Victorian Football League in 1896 until it was disbanded in 1995, the Victorian Football Association (VFA) was the second-tier club competition in Victoria, after which it was replaced by the current Victorian Football League (VFL) which serves as a state league and feeder to the AFL. Its home-and-away season has varied erratically from twelve to twenty games in length. Since the VFA and VFL have never possessed any mechanisms such as zoning or revenue sharing to reduce inequality of the sport’s limited talent pool, it has been quite easy for weak teams in these leagues to have seasons where they failed to win a single game.
| Season | Team | Wins | Losses | Draws | VFA Division | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1903 | Essendon Association | 0 | 18 | 0 | Single | |
| 1904 | Preston | 0 | 18 | 0 | Single | |
| 1910 | Preston | 0 | 18 | 0 | Single | Lost 29 games in a row and withdrew from the VFA only to return in 1926. |
| 1912 | Melbourne City | 0 | 18 | 0 | Single | Formed in 1912. |
| 1913 | Melbourne City | 0 | 18 | 0 | Single | Disbanded at end of season after two winless seasons with closest loss being eight points. |
| 1941 | Sandringham | 0 | 18 | 0 | Single | Conceded record score of 44-23 (287) Lost 44 games in a row (with no matches due to war from 1942 to 1944) up to 1945, then after being 2-18 won premiership in 1946 under Len Toyne. |
| 1951 | Box Hill | 0 | 19 | 1 | Single | First season in VFA |
| 1961 | Brighton | 0 | 18 | 0 | Second | Re-formed as Brighton-Caulfield after disbanding following season. |
| 1973 | Box Hill | 0 | 18 | 0 | Second | Lost 25 games in a row; won only eighteen in nine seasons from 1973 to 1981 |
| 1977 | Box Hill | 0 | 18 | 0 | Second | |
| 1981 | Sunshine | 0 | 18 | 0 | Second | Lost 65 of 72 games from 1980 to 1983. |
| 1983 | Waverley | 0 | 18 | 0 | First | Relegated to Second Division. 26 winless games after an opening round draw in 1984. |
| 1986 | Camberwell | 0 | 18 | 0 | First | Relegated to Second Division, but not successful even there. |
| 1986 | Mordialloc | 0 | 18 | 0 | Second | Withdrew early in 1988 season. |
| 1989 | Camberwell | 0 | 18 | 0 | Single | Did beat Sunshine early in season, but win not counted because Sunshine withdrew after eight games. |
| 1990 | Camberwell | 0 | 18 | 0 | Single | Planned to play in 1991, but withdrew at beginning of season. |
| 1993 | Coburg | 0 | 18 | 0 | Single | Lost 30 consecutive games; last coaching appointment for Alex Jesaulenko |
| 1995 | Williamstown | 0 | 16 | 0 | Single | Last season as the “VFA”. |
| 2001 | Bendigo Diggers | 0 | 18 | 0 | VFL | Went 1-17 in 2000. |
| 2002 | Bendigo Diggers | 0 | 18 | 0 | VFL | Two successive winless seasons; replaced by Bendigo Bombers for 2003. |
| 2009 | Bendigo | 0 | 18 | 0 | VFL |
In the South Australian National Football League, which until the 1970s was not that far below the VFL in standard, seasons before the league was reorganised under its present name in 1927 after previously being known as the South Australian Football Association up to 1906 and as the South Australian Football League were from twelve to fourteen games long. Since then they have been between seventeen and twenty-two games long, so that winless seasons have been by no means infrequent.
| Season | Team | Wins | Losses | Draws | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1898 | West Adelaide | 0 | 14 | 0 | |
| 1906 | West Adelaide | 0 | 12 | 0 | Was to win the premiership in 1908 with a 12-2 record for the whole season. |
| 1908[12] | Sturt | 0 | 12 | 0 | |
| 1909[13] | South Adelaide | 0 | 12 | 0 | Minimum losing margin was 15 points in extremely low-scoring game even for era. Went 1-11 in both 1910[14] and 1911[15] for a combined three-season record of 2-34 including losing streaks of 19 and 17 games. |
| 1921[16] | Glenelg | 0 | 14 | 0 | First season in SAFL. Lost first fifty-six matches for all-time record losing streak in major Australian Rules competitions. |
| 1922[17] | Glenelg | 0 | 14 | 0 | |
| 1923[18] | Glenelg | 0 | 14 | 0 | |
| 1924[19] | Glenelg | 0 | 14 | 0 | Won first game in 1925 opening round against 1924 premiers West Torrens |
| 1926[20] | South Adelaide | 0 | 13 | 1 | |
| 1933[21] | West Adelaide | 0 | 17 | 0 | Lost five games by six points or fewer. |
| 1948[22] | South Adelaide | 0 | 17 | 0 | Minimum losing margin was 23 points. Lost 34 games in a row from Round 4, 1947[23] to Round 3, 1949[24] |
| 1950[25] | South Adelaide | 0 | 17 | 0 | Lost 24 games in a row. Success rate for the five seasons from 1947 to 1951 was 8.14% (seven wins in 86 games). |
| 1964 | Central District | 0 | 20 | 0 | First senior SANFL season. |
| 1995 | Sturt | 0 | 22 | 0 | Longest winless season in major Australian Rules competition. Minimum losing margin of 24 points also greatest for a winless SANFL team. |
The West Australian Football League has existed since 1885 within Western Australia, and until the latter part of the 20th century was of equivalent standard to either the VFL or SANFL. Its season was originally around fourteen games in length, but because the league extended to a twenty-game home-and-away season well before the VFL or SANFL did, winless seasons have been much rarer. However, there have been quite a number of cases where a team came very close to a winless record through winning only one game by a very narrow margin, or was in danger of a winless season when it managed to win[26].
| Season | Team | Wins | Losses | Draws | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1902 | Subiaco | 0 | 15 | 0 | Record losing sequence of 29 straight games. |
| 1903 | Subiaco | 1 | 14 | 0 | |
| 1904 | South Fremantle | 1 | 14 | 0 | |
| 1905 | Subiaco | 0 | 10 | 0 | Played fewer games than rival league clubs due to financial difficulties. |
| 1906 | Subiaco | 1 | 16 | 0 | |
| 1909 | Midland Junction | 1 | 15 | 1 | Was 0-14-1 before beating West Perth. |
| 1914 | North Fremantle | 1 | 13 | 0 | Only win against West Perth in second last game by three points. |
| 1915 | North Fremantle | 1 | 20 | 0 | Forfeited five of last six games due to lack of players and disbanded at end of season. |
| 1917 | Midland Junction | 0 | 12 | 0 | Disbanded at end of season despite efforts at a revival in 1920s. |
| 1923 | Perth | 1 | 12 | 1 | Only win in last game by two points against Subiaco. |
| 1926 | Claremont | 1 | 17 | 0 | Debut season in league when known as Claremont-Cottesloe; only win by one point against South Fremantle. |
| 1927 | Claremont | 1 | 17 | 0 | |
| 1939 | West Perth | 1 | 19 | 0 | Lost 27 consecutive games until sole win against Subiaco. |
| 1951 | Swan Districts | 1 | 20 | 0 | |
| 1968 | Swan Districts | 1 | 20 | 0 | Only win by one point (with fewer goals) after siren against East Fremantle. |
| 1982 | Subiaco | 1 | 20 | 0 | Start of sixteen straight losses worst in league history to that point; only win against East Fremantle in seventeenth round. |
| 1997 | Peel | 1 | 19 | 0 | Debut season in league; only win by three points against Claremont in seventh match. |
| 1998 | Peel | 1 | 19 | 0 | Began season with 0-14 record for 27 losses on end before beating East Perth |
| 1999 | Peel | 0 | 20 | 0 | Lost 28 consecutive games. |
| 2000 | Perth | 1 | 17 | 0 | Only win in very last game against Swan Districts. |
| 2002 | Swan Districts | 1 | 17 | 0 | Only win by two points against Peel in seventh game. |
| 2003 | Peel | 1 | 19 | 0 | Only win in second last game against South Fremantle. Lost seven games by over 100 points and one by 99. |
In British rugby league, it is exceedingly unlikely that a team could lose all its games because the schedule was around 38 games long when the code was first established, and has never been shorter than the current 27 games. In Australian rugby league, however, seasons were initially between eight (in the event of Kangaroo tours) and sixteen games long, so that a very bad team could go through a season with only losses. As a result of the expansion of the NSWRL from 1947 onwards, the season has been lengthened gradually with a few intermissions. The following NSWRL teams up to 1966 did not win a single game:
| Season | Team | Wins | Losses | Draws | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1966 | Easts | 0 | 18 | 0 | Longest winless season in NSWRL/NRL history. Last season with 18 games: in 1967 the season expanded to 22. Sequence of 29 winless games from Round 13 of 1965. |
| 1946 | Souths | 0 | 14 | 0 | Lost 22 successive games after the death of Alf Blair during the 1944/1945 off-season. |
| 1937 | University | 0 | 8 | 0 | Team disbanded after season shortened by Kangaroo tour, having won only one game in three years (13-11 against St. George in the last round of 1936). |
| 1935 | University | 0 | 16 | 0 | Lost 42 consecutive games after winning 4-3 in opening game of 1934 |
| 1921 | University | 0 | 8 | 0 | Kangaroo tour shortened season. Won only one game in initial season of 1920 for a combined 1-20 record. |
| 1920 | Annandale | 0 | 13 | 0 | Disbanded at end of season after having won only one game (8-5 against Norths) in three seasons. |
| 1918 | Annandale | 0 | 14 | 0 | Sequence of 27 winless games: won only twice in last four seasons |
Since 1967, NSWRL and later NRL seasons have been between 22 and 26 games long; thus it is much less likely a very bad team could lose every single one of its games. Only two teams since 1967 have had only one win in a season, and in both cases that win occurred early enough that the possibility of a winless season never occurred. There have been other teams that have started the season with more winless games, but all ultimately won at least twice. NSWRL/NRL teams with two or fewer wins since 1967, plus one case with no wins in first ten games, are:
| Season | Team | Played | Wins | Losses | Draws | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Souths | 24 | 3 | 21 | 0 | Began the season with twelve losses and at one point were 1-18. |
| 1995 | North Queensland Cowboys | 22 | 2 | 20 | 0 | Debut season; won only twice and lost first seven games. |
| 1993 | Gold Coast Seagulls | 22 | 1 | 21 | 0 | Only win in sixth game against Newcastle 22-6. |
| 1991 | Gold Coast Seagulls | 22 | 2 | 19 | 1 | Lost final thirteen games. |
| 1990 | Souths | 22 | 2 | 20 | 0 | Lost final thirteen games; was minor premier in 1989. |
| 1989 | Illawarra | 22 | 2 | 19 | 1 | Lost first eight games; had lost 19 of 20 before first win in Round 9. |
| 1984 | Wests | 24 | 1 | 23 | 0 | Only win in sixth game against Illawarra 13-10 Was sacked due to financial problems after 1983 and escaped against after 1984. |
| 1980 | Penrith | 22 | 2 | 19 | 1 | Second win in final game; only previous win 15-14 against Cronulla. |
| 1979 | Norths | 22 | 2 | 20 | 0 | Lost last thirteen games. |
| 1978 | Newtown | 22 | 2 | 19 | 1 | Winless in first fifteen games with only a draw 6-6 against St. George. |
| 1977 | Newtown | 22 | 2 | 20 | 0 | Twenty consecutive losses between Rounds 2 and 21 is record single-season losing streak. |
| 1968 | Newtown | 22 | 2 | 19 | 1 | Winless from ninth game of 1968 until tenth game of 1969 24-game winless streak worst in NSWRL/NRL since 1967 |
Super Rugby, the Southern Hemisphere's principal club competition, has seen two teams go through an entire season with no wins or draws. Both seasons were in the competition's past incarnations of Super 12 and Super 14, each name reflecting the number of competing teams.
Under both Super 12 (1996–2005) and Super 14 (2006–2010) formats, each team played all other teams once, resulting in seasons of 11 and then 13 games. The competition became Super Rugby with the addition of a 15th team in 2011. The season format was also heavily revamped; the regular season now consists of 16 matches.
The Super 12 and Super 14 eras each saw one team finish a season with only losses; both teams with this dubious distinction are from South Africa. In 2002, the Bulls, based in Pretoria, finished with 11 losses from 11 matches. The other imperfect season was that of the Johannesburg-based Lions in the final season of the Super 14 format in 2010, who lost all 13 of their matches, while ending up with a final points difference of negative 300.