Tuesday Top Ten: Quickest Expansion Franchises to Win a Title

As you may or may not know, the Vegas Golden Knights are a National Hockey League team.  This is their first season, and they are the Western Conference champions.  That means they'll be playing for the Stanley Cup against the winner of Wednesday night's Game 7 between the Washington Capitals and Tampa Bay Lightning.  And if the Capitals win the East, both teams would be playing for their first championship -- but that's a topic for a different Tuesday Top Ten.

What I'm talking about today is the fact that the Golden Knights could possibly win a Stanley Cup in their first year as an expansion franchise.  They have already become the first team in the four major North American sports leagues (MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA) to make it to the championship round in its inaugural season since the St. Louis Blues made it to the Stanley Cup finals in 1968.  For you non-hockey historians, an expansion team was guaranteed to make it to the finals in 1968 because the NHL put all of the six expansion teams in one conference and the "Original Six" in the other conference.

The Golden Knights' potential Stanley Cup championship got me thinking:  how quickly have expansion franchises in the four major sports leagues won a championship?  Obviously, the Golden Knights would be the quickest ever if they won this year.

For this exercise, it's important to figure out who qualifies as an "expansion franchise."  Here is how I'm going about it:

• For any of the leagues, I'm excluding teams who existed and played in another professional league prior to joining the current league.  For instance, teams that played in the AAFC or AFL before joining the NFL (i.e., the 49ers, Broncos, etc.) don't count because they were already established football franchises before joining the NFL.  Likewise, ABA teams that joined the NBA don't count.

• For the MLB, I'm including any team that was added to the league after 1960.  Here is who is included:
• Los Angeles Angels (f/k/a California Angels, and Anaheim Angels, then Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim)
• Texas Rangers (f/k/a the second Washington Senators)
• Houston Astros (f/k/a Houston Colt .45s)
• New York Mets
• Kansas City Royals
• Washington Nationals (f/k/a Montreal Expos)
• San Diego Padres
• Milwaukee Brewers (f/k/a Seattle Pilots)
• Seattle Mariners
• Toronto Blue Jays
• Colorado Rockies
• Miami Marlins (f/k/a Florida Marlins)
• Arizona Diamondbacks
• Tampa Bay Rays (f/ka/ Tampa Bay Devil Rays)

• For the NFL, it's kind of tricky because technically, there are only two franchises -- the Bears and the Cardinals -- that were original NFL franchises.  Then various now longtime teams joined the league over the next decade (the Giants, Lions, Redskins, etc.).  And then the AAFC merged into the NFL in 1949.  And then the AFL merged into the NFL in 1970.  Also, the Ravens are considered an expansion franchise, even though they were the Browns before moving to Baltimore, because the Browns' reestablishment in 1999 included all the prior Browns franchise history and records.  For sake of ease, I'm going to make it any expansion team since 1950 (and again, this doesn't include AFL teams that joined the NFL in the 1970 merger).  Here's who is included:
• Indianapolis Colts (f/k/a Baltimore Colts)
• Dallas Cowboys
• Minnesota Vikings
• Atlanta Falcons
• New Orleans Saints
• Seattle Seahawks
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers
• Carolina Panthers
• Jacksonville Jaguars
• Baltimore Ravens
• Houston Texans

• For the NHL, it's easy.  It's any team other than the Original Six (the Blackhawks, Bruins, Canadiens, Maple Leafs, Rangers, and Red Wings) or the teams that merged into the NHL from the WHA in 1979.

• For the NBA, the league fluctuated throughout the late '40s and '50s, then shrunk down to 8 or 9 teams between 1955 and 1966, before adding teams consistently over the following 15 years and then expanding again in the late '80s and mid 90s.  Thus, I'm going to go with 1966 as my beginning year, but again, I'm not including any ABA teams that merged into the NBA in 1976.  Here are the franchise who are included:
• Chicago Bulls
• Houston Rockets (f/k/a San Diego Rockets)
• Oklahoma City Thunder (f/k/a Seattle SuperSonics)
• Milwaukee Bucks
• Phoenix Suns
• Cleveland Cavaliers
• Los Angeles Clippers (f/k/a Buffalo Braves, San Diego Clippers)
• Portland Trail Blazers
• Utah Jazz (f/k/a New Orleans Jazz)
• Dallas Mavericks
• Miami Heat
• Charlotte Hornets 
• Minnesota Timberwolves
• Orlando Magic
• Memphis Grizzlies (f/k/a Vancouver Grizzlies)
• Toronto Raptors
• New Orleans Pelicans (f/k/a New Orleans Hornets) (like the Ravens in the NFL, the Pelicans are treated as an expansion franchise because the Charlotte Hornets retook their franchise history in 2014).

With that extremely long build-up, here are the ten expansion franchises across all four major sports leagues that won a championship the quickest:

1.  Milwaukee Bucks (NBA):  3rd season (1968-1971)

2.  Arizona Diamondbacks (MLB):  4th season (1998-2001)

3 (tie).  Florida Marlins (MLB):  5th season (1993-1997)

3 (tie).  Baltimore Ravens (NFL):  5th season (1996-2001)

5.  Baltimore Colts (NFL):  6th season (1953-1958)

6 (tie).  Philadelphia Flyers (NHL):  7th season (1967-1974)

6 (tie).  Portland Trailblazers (NBA):  7th season (1970-1977)

8 (tie).  New York Mets (MLB):  8th season (1962-1969)

8 (tie).  New York Islanders (NHL):  8th season (1972-1980)

10 (tie).  Dallas Cowboys (NFL):  12th season (1960-1972)

10 (tie).  Seattle SuperSonics (NBA):  12th season (1967-1979)

10 (tie).  Tampa Bay Lightning (NHL):  12th season (1992-2004)