From time to time, the score of a professional sports game is so lopsided that people turn off their televisions or leave the stands. One team’s lead is simply too large for the other team to overcome. This even happens in the most-watched sporting event every year, the Super Bowl. In Super Bowl XLVIII, Seattle beat Denver by a score of 43 to 8.
Blowouts have happened in each of the four major league sports, soccer and college football. Some of them go back to early in the 20th century.
To determine the biggest blowout in sports history, 24/7 Tempo reviewed sports data platforms like the Sports Reference family of sites to find past games of professional, college and international sports with the largest margins of victory in sports history.
Though basketball scores are typically higher than those in football, the back-and-forth nature of the game ensures that even the worst NBA teams can still rack up points. However, in sports like baseball, football and hockey, the biggest blowouts occur when one team is dominant on offense and defense, scoring at will on one end and holding their opponents scoreless on the other.
In professional or college sports, the talent level should, in theory, be close enough that games should stay relatively competitive. Yet many of the teams on the losing ends of blowouts were in the midst of losing seasons and had no hope of going to the postseason.
The lack of motivation and talent that caused the teams to have a losing record in the first place may have made them much more susceptible to losing in a lopsided fashion.
The biggest blowout in sports history is Georgia Tech vs. Cumberland, a college football game played on October 7, 1916. The final score: 222 to 0.
Cumberland reportedly shut down its football team before the game was played, but Georgia Tech, allegedly upset about Cumberland beating their baseball team 22 to 0, demanded Cumberland honor their previously scheduled game. So Cumberland sent a hastily assembled crew, and it showed. Georgia Tech scored 32 touchdowns overall. Cumberland, on the other hand, had 15 turnovers: nine fumbles and six interceptions. Georgia Tech’s head coach was John Heisman. If that name sounds familiar, it is because the award for the best college football player in the country is named in his honor.
Click here to read about the 20 biggest blowouts in sports history.
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