Perfect season

Also, because of improvements to pitches via the heavy roller and covering to protect from rain, the proportion of games "drawn" (not finished) has steadily risen since the 1870s.

Since tables of results have been kept in 1864,[10] the only team to have competed a true perfect season—winning outright every game—was Yorkshire in 1867 when led by George Freeman's and Tom Emmett's deadly fast bowling on uncovered and unrolled pitches,[11] they won all seven county games.

Despite losing several players and head coach George Halas to military service in World War II, the 1942 Bears finished 11–0–0 but again lost the NFL Championship Game, this time against the Washington Redskins.

The Patriots then won their divisional and conference playoff games, but were upset by the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII in dramatic fashion, giving them a final record of 18–1.

In Ohio, the Massillon Tigers (1904, 1905), Akron Indians (1909), Shelby Blues (1911), and Dayton Triangles (1918) all had perfect seasons during this era.

In 1920, the Union Club of Phoenixville, in eastern Pennsylvania, played in a league mostly consisting of local teams and earned a perfect season, claiming for itself a mythical national championship.

In 1918, Dayton and Buffalo had the additional advantage of having its strongest competitors suspend operations due to the Spanish flu and the First World War, restrictions that also prevented the two teams from playing each other.

Cleveland's perfect 1948 season was part of a longer string of 29 straight wins, which stretched from 1947 to 1949 and included both the 1947 and 1948 title games.

The 2009 Colts, having clinched the top seed in the AFC, sacrificed their chances at a perfect regular season and instead rested their starters the final two games to protect them for the playoffs, on orders from then General Manager Bill Polian.

The 1953 Cleveland Browns and 1969 Los Angeles Rams started 11–0 in twelve- and fourteen-game seasons respectively; both lost their only playoff game.

Likewise, the 2020 Houston Roughnecks of the second incarnation of the XFL were undefeated at 5–0 at the time the season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

[30] FC Bayern Munich managed a 11–0–0 perfect record en route to winning the 2019–20 UEFA Champions League, the first team to do so.

[36] The likelihood of a national team in the FIFA World Cup winning all its matches in regulation time to become the champion is much higher than most clubs in their domestic league, as the finals tournament in its current format lasts only seven games.

Through 2011, the likelihood of a national team winning all of its matches in the FIFA Women's World Cup was slightly greater than in the men's version.

The tournament expanded to 24 teams in 2015, at which time the number of games that the champion must play increased to seven (the same total as in the men's World Cup).

Germany won all of its matches in the 2007 final tournament without giving up a goal, becoming the first team in either the men's or women's World Cup to accomplish this feat.

The 1946 East Fremantle team was the first club in senior WAFL football[a] to have managed a perfect season, winning all twenty-one of its games; it is noted that the playing lists of many of its opponents had been seriously depleted by World War II.

The current Canadian Football League schedule in place since 1986 would require a team to win 20 games (18 regular season, 1 playoff after bye week, and the Grey Cup championship) to post a perfect record; the closest any team has come to such since the CFL's establishment in 1958 are the 1981 Edmonton Eskimos, who went 14–1–1 in the regular season, en route to winning their fourth of five straight Grey Cup titles by winning both their playoff games, and the closest since the institution of the 18-game schedule coming in 1989, also set by the Edmonton Eskimos, by going 16–2 in the regular season, only to be upset by the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the West Final.

In the Croatian Handball Premier League the RK Zagreb was unbeaten for 11 years, they won 190 consecutive games, last time they lost against Osijek Motormodul (38:39) on April 14, 2007.

[51] In Major League Lacrosse, which began play in 2001, the 2013 Denver Outlaws were the first team to complete a perfect regular season, winning all fourteen of their games.

In 2010, the New South Wales Swifts managed to win all thirteen regular season games, but lost both of their finals matches and ended with a 13–2 for that year.

In 2011 and 2012, the Washington Kastles of World Team Tennis completed back-to-back perfect seasons, the first pro sports franchise in the United States to do so.

In that period, it completed the Nations League, European Championship and Olympic Qualification Round / FIVB World Cup matches undefeated.

Considering the number of tournaments or races in those leagues, and the fact that each individual faces over 40 opponents as opposed to one, a perfect season is almost impossible.

This has only been achieved by five players in singles: Don Budge, Rod Laver, Maureen Connolly, Margaret Court and Steffi Graf.

The last men's team to finish unbeaten and untied and be national champions was the 1983–84 Bemidji State Beavers (31–0–0), who were then competing in Division II, a level of competition that no longer conducts a championship.

Finally, on Saturday, November 27, 2010, in their home stadium in Quebec City, they won the Vanier Cup 29–2 against the Calgary Dinos, capping a 13–0 season.

The Marlins concluded the regular season atop the West Division of the Quebec-Ontario Athletics Association with 12 wins, no losses and no ties.

The Varsity Blues won all 17 regular season games to place first in the Ontario University Athletics Association's East Division.

At the CCAA Hockey National Championships in Camrose, Alberta, St. Clair downed Cape Breton 10–4 in the semi-final and Selkirk 11–2 in the final.