My Knicks suck. I was still two months from birth when they last won in 1973.

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I shared a similar chart last year, and then there were a lot of comments and questions, so I wanted to improve it a bit.

• Source: Wikipedia
• Tools: Python for data cleaning and wrangling
• Datawrapper for chart

Few things to have in mind:

• The championships won are recorded for the cities only, not the individual franchises
• When a team relocates to a new city, the number of championships won in the prior city remain with that city
• Cities from suburbs and metropolitan areas, are mapped to the “main” city (e.g. Oakland to San Francisco)

If you would like to see different breakdowns (last 50 years, 21st century), or a full list of the cities (with at least 1 championship), you can find all that on my blog post here

On top of that, you can see a time series, and have a look how things changed with time. And there's a breakdown of all NYC sports championships.

Also, you find details about sources, methodology and mapping (which team was mapped to which city).

In general, it took quite some time to collect, organize and prepare all datasets, therefore hope you enjoyed.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays, everyone!

Edit: to provide some additional explanation. Wording is not the best, as if we are speaking about North America, we would need to include other countries and other leagues (e.g. Liga MX). Using wording like "US Sports" also isn't correct, as we have Canadian cities having representatives in some of the leagues. Some term like "US & Canada joint leagues" would maybe be better. General idea was to take 5 most popular sports, and get the winners of the top leagues of every sport. And that's why I haven't included CFL. For those asking why pre-NFL championships are included for football, it is because NFL recognizes them officially, similar like NBA recognizes BAA winners. Regarding soccer, I understand it wasn't big historically, but now is somewhere on pair with NHL, and that's why it was included. And I was only including MLS, since 1996.

As someone who really likes basketball, 2 titles (in the same era/decade) is really less, especially compared to other big name teams in the NBA.

Even worse, the Knicks haven't been the contender since the end of the 90s. Really subpar.

so, as this sub is about data presentation, the vertical city names is really not good. (maybe even angle them, so we can read them)

Also, maybe geolocate these bars.

And they peaked at the wrong time, when Jordan was in his prime, so there was no way we were going to get past the Bulls. The one year he retired for baseball we made the Championship and lost to the Rockets. It’s been a sad 50 year ride as a fan.

On the plus side, not really, they are only the 5th longest drought in the NBA. There is also 11 teams that have never won. And yes, they do suck.

Toronto and Cleveland really living on their historical glories here.

Is the football NFL only? I think you should include the CFL

Wouldn’t it make more sense to just make it a horizontal bar chart to fix the name issue?

Angling them is often hard to read and there’s a space issue if just the titles were horizontal

> Is the football NFL only?

Yes, NFL only.

edit: there was discussion before about that, and I don't think that majority of people would approve including CFL.

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Of course the majority would think so, Americans are self-centered lol, but this is supposed to represent North America.

IMO you either need to include it to make the title and data accurate or replace any mention of 'Football' with 'NFL'.

Interesting that you have all cities except for the state of Washington. Or is that D.C.?

That is D.C. Should have stated it more clearly.

Yeah as a browns fan, I did a double take when the majority of our championships were football

I guess the CFL (Canadian Football League) doesn’t count as a major sports championship.

I love that Montreal has only ever won a championship in hockey, but is still well up on the list.

The Celtics have 15 championship wins so even if this data was beautiful, it’s incorrect

It's not about US vs Canada, it's about level of the league. CFL is really not close tot the NFL level. I'm European, so could be I'm wrong, but my logic was to take top tier leagues of most popular sports.

TLDR the New York Yankees are really good

Are you sure about that?

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My condolences, but seeing your team miss out on the playoffs this past weekend was quite enjoyable. With that said, I'm an Edmonton Oilers fan so I understand your pain.

Yeah. If you want to add "football" then you need to add the third oldest sports league, and oldest football league, in North America, the CFL.

If you were being honest about "North American" sports leagues and their championships, then you'd have to add 48 football championships to Toronto,14 to Vancouver, 12 to Hamilton, and 8 to Montreal in order for this graph to have any validity.

FFS, OP added MLS, but not the CFL?

When the data is garbage, then its certainly not beautiful.

edit: links

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It's a major sports championship... As the title of your chart claims to represent. It is the top level of football in Canada, which is part of North America. There's no reason to exclude it except to pacify Americans.

They have 17 wins

Exactly, ruins it for me. They even play in the same stadiums sometimes lol. Including the White Caps and not the Lions is a joke

Charts like these need a time limit. 3 championships in the last 3 years and 3 championships between 1930 and 1950 when there were like 5 teams in the league and the sport was unrecognizable are not really comparable.

Check my other comment, there's a link, and you can see the breakdown for the last 50 years or for the 21st century.

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Great graphic to show parity in the NFL

If it’s nfl only why does Detroit have 3 football championships?

Source: https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/

Is St. Louis the only city with championships for sports that they no longer have teams?

We pretending soccer is a "major" sport?

Yet you included soccer?

Or just have the bars in descending order from highest to lowest…

But they're still championships, so they should still count.

Not just the Super Bowls; all NFL championships they recognize including the pre-merger titles. Which is why the Bears and Packers have double-digit NFL title wins.

as an american who has gone to canada, cfl is definitely a major sport event. it is one of the most viewed sports there. i believe the grey cup previously was the most viewed sporting event in canada.

If it weren’t for MLS, the city of Los Angeles would be more despaired of sports titles than any other city.

My little brother was born less than two weeks after the last Cowboys Super Bowl win. And I have to console him every January when they’ve flamed-out in the postseason since.

Look at all the cities whose NBA team peaked at the exact same time as Michael Jordan, with the majority not being able to compete post-Jordan:

• New York City (Knicks)

• Seattle (Sonics)

• Portland (Blazers)

• Phoenix (Suns)

• Salt Lake City (Jazz)

• Indianapolis (Pacers)

Reckon without Jordan, two or three of these cities would’ve had a basketball championship by now.

Maybe me and your bro can start our own support group.

The 40s and 50s were when New York City claimed World Series titles by default.

Not yet at the point where the 1985 Bears, 1994 Rangers, 2008 Celtics or 2020 Dodgers are at the most milking of one championship.

MJ did ruined a lot of dreams, no question about that.

I'm from DC, so I'll gladly take the soccer championships, but I don't think most Americans would consider them legit championships on the level of the other sports.

> There's no reason to exclude it except to pacify Americans.

Or maybe OP knew the NFL is more popular than the CFL in Canada, making it the top league.

https://www.canadafootballchat.com/how-popular-is-the-nfl-in-canada/

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To be fair, 1 championship in several decades is still better than 0 championships in several decades.

Is New York counting the devils and islanders?

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There were NFL champions long before the Superbowl

Yeah I know. I was debating whether to include MLS or not. In the end I did because of the reports that, popularity wise, it's close to NHL.

But I know historically it's a completely different thing.

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Thx for stacking them in that specific order!

What soccer has to do with CFL?

You really would count that, and treat it the same way as winning the Superbowl or NBA finals?

A good number of LA teams had championships in other cities prior to moves, or were expansions after 1950. Only the Rams existed prior to 1950. Then you have several years without an NFL team.

A lot of the east coast and Midwest teams date back to early 1900s. Some LA team championships belong to other cities. Brooklyn Dodgers in 1955, Cleveland Rams in 1945, St Louis Rams in 2000.

Well if you look at Vancouver's teams... They play in the same stadium yet the far more popular and historical team is excluded from this.

I think it's the oldest major sports trophy in North America too, commissioned in 1909

I'm sure more watch Premier League football too .. but MLS is still our soccer championship

Yeah, Liga MX would likely be top tier for North America. Would be equivalent to Canada with NHL for popularity.

I merely find it interesting that Cleveland has NBA, NFL, and MLB teams, Cincinnati has MLB and NFL teams, but Columbus (the capital of Ohio, with more people than Cincinnati and Cleveland combined) only has an NHL team.

San Antonio, the 7th largest city in the United States, has only an NBA team. Pittsburgh, which has just over 1/5 the population, has NFL, MLB, and NHL teams.

Also counts Dodgers in 1955, Giants in 1905, 1921, 1933 and 1954.

Edit: and 2 mets championships.

Still impressive though. Even if a lot were a long time ago.

Quibble, but your title here includes North America, but Liga MX would cover Mexico. Would get confusing as they play two phases to their year with separate champions for the last 40-50 years.

Then again the blog mixes US/Canada vs North America. Consistency would be helpful.

Mets too

Also, it sure what the football championships are in Detroit?

While it's a major sport, the players in the CFL are NFL washouts or prospects mostly. It'd be like comparing MLB with AAA baseball. One is the top league. Doesn't make the other any less important. It's just not the top league.

It is. He has a break down of greater NYC on his blog post.

Geolocation on a map would be good. Does hockey skew north? Does soccer skew coastal? I suspect so, but it would be easier to see.

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Canadians are always whining and begging for attention.

The color choice for each sport is so wrong.

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If OP is counting MLS, and "... treat it the same way as winning the Superbowl or NBA finals..." then yes, I would. I'd count something with higher ratings, a larger fan base, a longer lineage, and generates more money than MLS.

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in canada? no. majority of people either only watch cfl or only watch cfl and nfl. very few people wholeheartedly prefer the nfl over the cfl, you could say eastern canada but even then its fairly split. western canada is basically all in on the cfl. the nfl is an american league watched by americans.

Second.

It is major league football. What makes the CFL not worthy of inclusion and the NFL worthy aside from American centric ness?

Probably best to just label the colours MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, MLS.

On the same logic, North American football (soccer) leagues should be excluded.

Might have responded to wrong comment. I know Canadians prefer it, almost to NFL being an after thought. My comment was on the players in the league. CFL is people cut or retired out of NFL looking for a second chance at a playing career.

Comparing it to minor league AAA baseball to MLB or AHL to NHL is as close as I can compare, but even that's likely selling the CFL a bit short.

If we're talking the premier division in US/Canada, the NFL clearly has a higher quality for talent and product. And that's the argument I'm getting from the OP.

What defines "major league"? My understanding is that the CFL is mainly made up of players who wouldn't cut it in the NFL. Personally, I'd say a major leauge is the highest level, with the best players, in its sport.

If the Grey Cup isn't a major championship because it's a second tier gridiron footbal league, then the MLS certainly isn't. It's not even one of the top 10 soccer leagues in the world yet.

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Didn't St Louis just win the Stanley Cup like 2 years ago?

That makes sense. NHL has been declining in popularity for many years and is really only still considered part of the "big four" sports because of its history. I just saw a report that said only 6 teams in the NFL, NBA, and MLB have lower payrolls than the salary cap in the NHL. The highest paid player in the NHL makes $12.5M whereas the top players in the other three leagues make 4 times that. It's crazy how far the NHL has fallen from where it was in the '90s.

> Cities from suburbs and metropolitan areas, are mapped to the “main” city (e.g. Oakland to San Francisco)

Oakland: 10
San Francisco: 9

Just wanted to point that out.

Montreal as well, they haven't won the Stanley Cup since '93 and have only had championships in hockey. At least the Toronto Raptors and FC have won championships this decade!

And yet OP included MLS.

Cleveland also peaked at that time, just happened to peak higher in the 2010s.

I don’t know anyone that would consider soccer a major North American sport. It’s the big 4.

It's not NFL only. Looks like Cleveland has 9 football titles (with 2 MLB and 1 NBA for 12 total titles)

The Cleveland Bulldogs won the NFL in 1924. The Cleveland Rams won the NFL in 1945. The Browns won the AAFC in 46, 47, 48, and 49. The Browns then won the NFL in 50, 54, 55, and 64. Unless they included the 1 Akron (1920) and 2 Canton (1922, 23) titles as Cleveland's, there are 6 NFL titles for Cleveland.

So they must have counted the Rams 1 and all 8 of the Browns championships for the 9 or NFL titles for the Rams (1), Browns (4), Cleveland Bulldogs (1), Akron Pros (1), and Canton Bulldogs (2).

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That's what I was thinking too! A good opportunity to use relevant colours for each sport. Eg:

Hockey = black (that got that one). Basketball = orange. Baseball = white and red Soccer = white and black Football = brown

Still, an informative graph!

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I wouldn’t include MLS in Major Sports championships, or NFL championships pre-1967.

Yeah but the m stands for Major

New York hasn't had a title in a long time though

I've got no counter argument.

New York as well, with Yankees

30 years isn't that bad, and for the majority of the time tracked in this data set they've only had one team. The fact that they even have that big of a bar is incredibly impressive.

Yankees are in a different situation than the Leafs or the Browns. The Yankees are, and for the most part have always been competitive. That's nowhere close to the factory of sadness in Cleveland or the game 7 meme machine in Toronto.

I think this dataset is better just removing the MLS. In grouping the North American major sports leagues the “Big Four” of the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL are much more commonly used.

And if you use those you get the funny effect of Los Angeles having fewer championships than Montreal, who is running on hockey alone.

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https://www.bostoncelticshistory.com/collection/sweet-17-champs-in-08/

They claim to have 17 championships. Are they wrong?

I’d say per capita and only having 1 team Green Bay (population now just hit 100k) is over achieving.

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Real TLDR: New York has a lot of teams

Title should be "US and Canadian cities..."

I can almost guarantee OP meant US, but had to include Canada because several Canadian cities play in some of the US leagues. OP then made the unfortunate mistake of conflating US+Canada with North America.

In which case, the “major” sports leagues are clearly NHL, NBA, NFL, MLB, and MLS.

Remember when the raptors won the championship? Crazy times

Where's Oakland? Oakland has had a couple baseball dynasties, the warriors were winning there, two NFL championships.

SF and Oakland should not be together.

MSL is a top league of the sport that is number 5. CFL is not a top football leage.

It's apples and oranges

Ok now show us the bottom 10 so we can laugh at them

CFL is one of two national American football leagues on the planet... You don't even know it's called MLS

Seeing the Cleveland graphic hurts because you know damn well those football victories were a while ago. At least Cleveland had Stipe!

Yes but Cleveland had the greatest heavyweight champion in the UFC, Stipe! Remember the parade when he first won the belt and rode with the Cavs? And we thought the Indians would win one too?

> At least Cleveland had Stipe!

And Lebron. So not so bad after all, for the recent years.

What other North American soccer league is superior to MLS?

That team was stacked and is still seriously underrated.

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No way Cleveland has that many championships this has to be counting “non Super Bowl” championships like divisional and league.

I'm just saying that if we only included data from the era of colour TV, neither city would show up on the graph.

The only positive list St Louis will make

Guy literally meant Northern most American continent! No Texas city is criminal when your including Detroit..and nothing from Florida either?

A couple points to (partially) explain this. Metro area population, not “city limits” population, is what you should be looking at. San Antonio isn’t 5x the size of Pittsburgh, it’s ~10% larger, and Columbus isn’t bigger than Cincy and Cleveland, all three are within ~10% of each other. Second, the teams don’t necessarily reflect the biggest cities today, but years ago. Go back to 1970 and Pittsburgh was 2.5x San Antonio, Cleveland was 2.5x Columbus, and Cincy was >50% larger than Columbus.

And then there’s Green Bay.

Is there a soccer competition in the US&Canada that is at higher quality level?

West sider here. Being a cleveland fan is masochistic.

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Green Bay has 12 championships ..is this super-bowl wins or conference titles as well ?

It’s NFL titles. GB has 13.

And Sabres...oh wait

I think it’s up to how you measure top ten, but I am pretty sure you would be wrong on most counts. MLS is doing pretty well for itself now, although looking at Washington this must have historical MLS trophies when the league was… less good

Sort of, OP included MLS wins in soccer, but not NASL, which was the top division for a couple of decades. That would give NY 5 more titles.

Please scroll to page 5. I want to see Atlanta.

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3 in total:

• 2 baseball
• 1 soccer

That early 20th century Yankee dominance skews New York SO hard! /bitter Angelino

That happened before running water was invented.

They are under 500 and the city is stoked about them. It is very strange.

Liga MX, if CONCACAF Champions League results are any indication.

Can we put an astrix next to NY since we know for a fact that many of those WS titles have issues. If we're calling for it on other teams, it's only fair that it applies to everyone

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I think they're referencing the Rams (NFL) with their comment. The Blues won the Cup in 2019 (that parade was nuts, it was fucking freezing out and there were hundreds of thousands of us in the streets partying). The Cardinals won the World Series in 2006 and 2011 most recently.

Bruh. The guys that played pre-67 in all sport very literally built everything everyone else played on you doofus. Discounting their play because they wouldn't compete with the hyperfocused athletes of the modern world is silly. The only reason they can focus on the sport is because of those guys.

Soccer is another story.

They come from the pre-superbowl era. Cleveland, Green Bay, New York LA, Boston, Chicago, Montreal and Detroit all benefit from, I guess you could call, "legacy" championships. Back when there were only 6 teams in the leagues and everyone had second jobs to support their sport hobby.

Edit: most of these teams actually benefit from legacy championships. Pays to be early.

Don’t worry North Americans, at any moment a great sports team might just appear in your city, having left another one. Surprise!

I’d have to say that how it’s shown is a big part. I can’t even watch my Red Wings because Bally Sports is the devil. What a crappy company

It because of the future plus the present. Not hard to understand that… This was the rebuild year and they’re painfully close to being pretty good. Keep your negativity elsewhere.

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Detroit is historically very good and the sports are concentrated there. It makes sense if you think about it…

This list is missing CFL victories. If they are counting soccer, they should count CFL, considering Canadian cities don't have NFL teams.

I am aware of this, but still find it interesting that many large cities (ex. Austin, Columbus, El Paso, San Jose) lack NFL, MLB, and NBA teams.

Some large cities, like Colorado Springs and Fort Worth, are overshadowed by nearby larger cities (Denver and Dallas, respectively). Austin might be overshadowed by San Antonio, which is larger, although the former is becoming a major tech center akin to Silicon Valley.

If soccer fans wish hard enough it will become in real league.

Detroit has football championships but no Super Bowl win.

Should we include the American Association championships from pre-1901 NL/AL World Series? Those aren’t on here.

How about pre-1917 NHA Stanley cup championships? Those aren’t on here either.

Many cities would look different on the chart

<Canada wondering why are getting lumped into an American thing>

I don't see why not for the NHA except its focused on even less cities than the original 6. It's not that many extra championships tho, so whatever.

I'm actually confused why they don't include 19th century baseball in the annals of baseball stats. Maybe they will do that to 20th century baseball as we get closer to the 21st century. I hope not.

Is the NHL an american thing?

There's high level badminton too, want to include that?

So do you give Oakland 3 NBA titles and SF 1? Also do either of these teams get a title of SJ Sharks win?

You should normalize the data to a basis of one team per sport!

Soccer is, at least im the US, 5th most popular sports, very close to NHL.

Yeah. And by OPs logic, SF gets the As rings from the 70s and 90s.

As for San Jose, you get NOTHING!

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