Lose is a four letter word

The title of the post refers to a song by a group called Power Salad which is about Cleveland sports futility as well as people who make spelling errors. http://www.thefump.com/fump.php?id=1423

Since the Cleveland Browns won the last title for the city in 1964 and with the Cleveland Cavs in the conference finals, I figured now or never to figure the mathematical odds of the three Cleveland sports teams in the top level of the sport not winning a championship for 50 years.

As in the past, I figured out the odds of the team not winning in a specific year and multiplied them. When divisions and conferences or leagues had equal number of teams, it was easy. When that wasn't the case, it was more difficult like when the Cleveland Browns were in a four team division in a 13 or 14 team American Football Conference from 1970-1981 and from 1983-1994.

When conferences had an unequal number of teams, I figured out the chance of winning the conference and multiplied by 2 like the Indians from 1977-1992 who played in a 14 team American League while there was a 12 team National League.

Cleveland Cavs

1971-1974 -  16-1
1975-1977 -  18-1
1978-1988 -  22-1
1989             24-1
1990-1991 -  26-1
1992-1995 -  28-1
1996-2014 -  30-1

Total odds - 6.64-1

Cleveland Indians

1965-1968 -  20-1
1969-1976 -  24-1
1977-1993 -  28-1
1995-2012 -  88-3
2013-2014 -  30-1

Total odds - 6.40-1

Cleveland Browns

1965             14-1
1966-1969 -  32-1
1970-1975 -  320-13
1976-1981 -  176-7
1982             28-1
1983-1994 -  176-7
1995             30-1
1999-2001 -  312-9
2002-2014 -  32-1

Total odds - 6.36-1

Complete odds 270-1

I was surprised that the Cavs who started playing 5 years later had the highest odds of the three teams of going without a title but the NBA expanding a few years later than MLB of the NFL along with no MLB champ in 1994 and no NFL in Cleveland from 1996-1998 was the difference.