9 Greatest Winning Streaks in Sports History (Ranked)

Key Takeaways Winning streaks are one of the more prestigious honours a team in any sport can chase.
Runs of wins are arguably more common in American sports than European ones, with many of the former often having just wins or losses, not draws.
Only two teams on this list have had a streak of 30 wins or more. ✕ Remove Ads
The idea of a winning streak is perhaps more accustomed to American team sports than those in Europe. In football, Europe’s predominant sport, unbeaten runs are far more likely given that teams can end a match with a draw. This tends not to be the case in America’s major sports leagues, with drawing teams often entering overtime to find a winner and a loser.
A winning streak of any margin is impressive, a mark of a team showing superiority over the opponents in their league. They are a treasured aspect of any club’s history in any sport, something for fans to look back on and fondly remember a time in which their side was the most dominant of all. In the NBA, the Cleveland Cavaliers’ incredible start to the season saw them go 15-0 before finally seeing their historic run come to an end against the reigning champions the Boston Celtics.
With all of this being considered, it is more than worth asking the question; just what are some of the most impressive win streaks across the history of sport as a whole?
Ranking Factors
This list has looked across a wide array of the world’s sporting leagues with an aim of covering winning streaks in a larger variety of sports to highlight how impressive the act is overall, rather than solely focusing on one particular sport.
Greatest Winning Streaks in Sports History Rank Team Name Sport Winning Run Season 1. Al Hilal Football 34 2023/24 2. Los Angeles Lakers Basketball 33 1971/72 3. Golden State Warriors Basketball 28 2014/15 & 2015/16 4. Miami Heat Basketball 27 2012/13 5. The New Saints Football 27 2016/17 6. Ajax Football 26 1971/72 7. Indianapolis Colts American Football 23 2008 & 2009 8. Cleveland Indians (now Guardians) Baseball 22 2017 9. Pittsburgh Penguins Ice Hockey 17 1992/93
9 Pittsburgh Penguins
17 wins
Five-time Stanley Cup winners Pittsburgh Penguins have certainly had a storied history. They are the first team in the salary cap era to have won back-to-back Stanley Cup honours and multiple players of their past have been inducted into the Hall of Fame. It has not always been as enjoyable though. Towards the end of the 1990s, the club was struggling with bankruptcy prior to Mario Lemieux’s purchase of them in 1999.
A few years prior to their financial struggles, the Penguins won two successive Stanley Cups in 1991 and 1992, with Lemieux as their star player, having been drafted number one overall in 1984. A cancer diagnosis in 1993 disrupted Lemieux’s career, though the player would thankfully return to the game just two months after his diagnosis.
Upon Lemieux’s return, the Penguins rallied and played better than they had been in the past, winning 17 consecutive games in a run that set the National Hockey League record for the longest win streak ever. Though they would lose in the second round of the playoffs to the New York Islanders, it scarcely dampens how impressive their run of victories was.
8 Cleveland Indians
22 wins
Now known as the Cleveland Guardians, the team then known as the Indians embarked on a truly golden run of form in the 2017 season. From August 24th to September 15th, Cleveland won 22 straight games, setting a new record for American League baseball in a campaign that saw them win 100 games in total, something achieved by just two other teams in history.
Managed by Terry Francona and supported on the field by star ace Corey Kluber and the brilliant duo of Jose Ramirez and Francisco Lindor, Cleveland opened the scoring in 19 of the 22 games that they won, a staggering run of momentum that smashed the franchise’s previous-best winning run of 14 games.
Cleveland would ultimately be beaten in the 2017 American League Division Series by the New York Yankees, surrendering a 2-0 series lead to lose 3-2, but this takes nothing away from the remarkable regular season run they embarked on.
7 Indianapolis Colts
23 wins
Credit: © Matthew Emmons-Imagn Images
In the 15 years since the Indianapolis Colts set the record for the longest winning streak of any team in National Football League history, there have been few teams to even come close to the number, let alone anywhere near beating it.
Led by legendary quarterback Peyton Manning, a five-time MVP and two-time Super Bowl winner, the Colts ended the 2008 season strong, winning eight-straight games as Manning sealed the third MVP award of his career up until that point. Indianapolis, however, could not capitalise on this in the postseason, losing in the Wild Card round to the San Diego Chargers who had also eliminated them in the playoffs the year prior.
Building on the form they had shown towards the end of the 2008 campaign, Indianapolis started the 2009 season on fire, winning their first 14 games of the league and securing the longest-ever winning run of any team in NFL history. Having secured themselves a playoff berth, the Colts infamously rested their starting players for their final two regular season games, which saw their record drop to 14-2 when the playoffs began.
Though Manning won a second-successive MVP award and the Colts reached the Super Bowl, they were beaten on the grand stage by the New Orleans Saints.
Related Ranking the 5 Best Indianapolis Colts Players of All Time The best Colts players of all time list has to start with the franchise’s pair of iconic quarterbacks.
6 Ajax
26 wins
With one of the richest histories in club football, Ajax have long been a dominant force in the Dutch game. Perhaps their most famous team was that of the early 1970s. Former player Rinus Michels was appointed as manager in 1965 and across his six-year tenure, he implemented the “Total Football” philosophy with Johan Cruyff and Johan Neeskens being two key proponents of the idea on the pitch.
Michels departed the club in 1971 to join Barcelona, where he would spend three years as manager. He was succeeded by Stefan Kovacs as boss and the Romanian expanded upon Michel’s ideologies as a coach. Under Kovacs and bolstered by Cruyff, Neeskens and others like Ruud Krol and Arie Haan, Ajax won 26-straight matches between 1971 and 1972.
Their incredible form stretched across the Eredivisie, Dutch Cup and European Cup until their winning run ended in March 1972 as Ajax won a European treble of all three competitions, losing just once all season.
Related Rinus Michels: How the godfather of Dutch football delivered the Netherlands Euro 1988 It was the manager who kickstarted the totaalvoetbal revolution who led the Netherlands to their only major trophy.
5 The New Saints
27 wins
At the time of writing, Welsh side The New Saints are playing in their maiden Europa Conference League campaign, becoming the first Welsh league side to compete in a major European competition. They are playing their games just over the English border at the Meadow, the stadium of Shrewsbury Town, to meet UEFA stadium regulations.
TNS thought they had equalled the record they set a few seasons back earlier this year, but were ultimately told by record-keepers that only wins over a 90-minute period count, meaning their penalty shootout win over East Fife in the Scottish Challenge Cup rendered their run invalid, though took nothing away from a storming run of form.
What does stand, however, is the record that TNS set in 2016. They opened that year’s Welsh Premier League with a 2-1 win over Aberystwyth, kick-starting a 27-game winning streak across the league and Scottish Challenge Cup.
Their winning run came to an end against Newtown in the league, with the two teams drawing 3-3 when they met in January 2017. Their February loss to St. Mirren in the cup was their first loss in any competition since APOEL beat them 3-0 in Champions League qualification the previous August.
4 Miami Heat
27 wins
As the Miami Heat entered the 2010s, they made a franchise-defining decision. Having re-signed Dwyane Wade, who they drafted in 2003 with the fifth overall pick, they lured two members of Wade’s draft class to join him in Miami; Chris Bosh from the Toronto Raptors and LeBron James from the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Known as the Big Three, such was their star power, the trio played four full seasons together and guided Miami to the NBA Finals in every single year. Coached by Erik Spoelstra, who remains with the Heat to this day, their first effort to win a championship ended in defeat to the Dallas Mavericks in 2011. The next season, though, supported by an MVP-winning James, they won their first trophy as a trio, overcoming the Oklahoma City Thunder in the finals.
The following season, with the addition of veterans Rashard Lewis and Ray Allen, the Heat looked to return to the finals yet again which they did in stunning fashion. The Miami outfit stringed together a run of 27-straight wins, which at the time was the second-longest streak in NBA history.
James won his fourth MVP award that season, which Miami finished with a 66-16 record. They once again reached the finals where they faced San Antonio. The Heat overcame the San Antonio Spurs 4-3 in a seven-game series, a series that saw Allen make one of the most famous shots of his career in Game 6.
Related Villain LeBron: Best Moments With the Miami Heat Back-to-back NBA titles and Finals MVPs, one of the greatest win streaks in NBA history, groundbreaking records. Miami-LeBron was a movie.
3 Golden State Warriors
28 wins
The Golden State Warriors formed a dynasty in the 2010s. Guided by coach Steve Kerr and led by Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, the Warriors oversaw a transitional period in the NBA, with Curry and Thompson, the Splash Brothers, frequenting long range, three-point shooting as now most teams do.
The Warriors won the 2014/15 NBA Championship, with Curry having achieved his first MVP award in that season. They won their final four games of that term and opened their following season with a run of 24 victories, the best start in league history. They finished the season with a record of 73 wins and just nine losses, having added Kevin Durant in the off season to bolster a title-winning team.
Despite this record and Curry winning his second MVP award, the first to ever be awarded unanimously, the Warriors were unable to retain their championship, but that takes nothing away from the incredible record that they set.
2 Los Angeles Lakers
33 wins
The 1970/71 season was a mixed one for the Los Angeles Lakers. They finished with a 48-34 record, but saw star point guard Jerry West go down injured with 13 regular season games remaining. They would reach the Western Conference Finals, where they lost to the Milwaukee Bucks in five games.
In the following campaign, however, with a star-studded roster including Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain and a healthy West, the Lakers exploded, finishing the season with a record of 69 wins and 13 losses, the best season ever at the time and a record that would stand until Michael Jordan’sChicago Bulls broke it in the 90s.
During this season, which the Lakers would wrap up by beating the New York Knicks 4-1 in the Finals to become champions, they embarked on a 33-game winning streak, the longest of any NBA team in history and a record that still stands to this day. This iteration of the Lakers is, understandably, often regarded as one of the game’s greatest-ever teams.
1 Al Hilal
34 wins
Recognised as a Guinness World Record for the longest winning run in association football, Al Hilal’s phenomenal streak began in September 2023. After drawing with Damac, they beat Al-Jabalain in the first round of the King’s Cup by a 1-0 scoreline, the first of what would be an exceptional stretch of victories.
From there, the Saudi side embarked on an incredible 34-game win streak across the Saudi Pro League, King’s Cup, AFC Champions League and Saudi Super Cup under the management of Jorge Jesus with players like Bono, Kalidou Koulibaly, Ruben Neves and Aleksandar Mitrovic.
Al Hilal would win the Pro League, King’s Cup and Saudi Super Cup come the end of the season, by which time their historic run had come to an end. In the first leg of the AFC Champions League semi-finals, they were defeated 4-2 by Al-Ain, ending their win streak at 34, a staggering number.