Cleveland sports curse

The Cleveland sports curse was a sports superstition involving the city of Cleveland, Ohio, and its major league professional sports teams, centered on the failure to win a championship in any major league sport for 52 years, from 1964 to 2016. Three major league teams based in Cleveland contributed to belief in the curse: the Browns of the National Football League (NFL); the Cavaliers of the National Basketball Association (NBA); and the then-Indians of Major League Baseball (MLB).

The championship drought began after the Browns defeated the Baltimore Colts in the 1964 NFL Championship Game, two seasons before the first Super Bowl. The city's professional sports teams, including the short-lived Barons franchise of the National Hockey League, then went an unprecedented 147 combined seasons without a championship. The drought ended when the Cavaliers beat the Golden State Warriors in Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals by overcoming a 3-1 series deficit, an event widely interpreted as having broken the curse.