also-ran

TikTok said that Oracle would run its secure cloud in the U.S., a coup for Oracle’s then also-ran business.

Those groups have already reshaped European soccer over the past two decades, helping push former also-ran clubs to unprecedented glory.

Since purchasing the team a decade ago, Ballmer has been on a quest to bring the also-ran Clippers their first NBA title.

So in football terms they are an afterthought, an also-ran, but off the field they are a behemoth of marketing, revenue, glitz, glamour and headlines - even their cheerleaders have their own long-running reality TV show.

Indeed, this election delivered another, somewhat less dramatic surprise: The centrist Liberal Democrats, a polite also-ran third party over the last four decades, gained 163 council seats to finish second to Reform.