Do you think any city will ever have all 4 major US sports championships at one time?
We can expand the definition of city to allow the entire metro area. If you want, allow Orlando to be included in the Tampa/St Pete area so you can have the Magic, Bucs, Rays, and Lightening. I’ll also include the Chargers in the Los Angeles area. Also, the SF area can include the San Jose Sharks
There isn’t any one city right now that can easily capture all 4 crowns.
Dallas has strong teams with the Cowboys, Stars, and Mavs. But, the Rangers are not going to win a World Series any time soon.
Boston has the Pats, Celtics, Red Sox. But, they also have the Bruins.
Phoenix has the D-backs, Cardinals, Suns. The Coyotes won’t see a Stanley Cup any time soon however.
If I include the Chargers with Los Angeles, that gives them a chance in the NFL. The Lakers are strong as well as the Angels. The Kings aren’t going to the playoffs this year and the Ducks aren’t going back to the finals soon either.
Philadelphia? I don’t think the Eagles are going to the playoffs this year. At least the Flyers and Phillies are strong. The 76ers aren’t going anywhere fast.
New York? The Knicks are the laughingstock of the NBA. The Yankees aren’t going to the playoffs. The Mets will probably choke away the NL East to the Phils. The Giants will finish last in the NFC East. The Jets aren’t a better team with Favre and will be 8-8. The Islanders are one of the worst teams in the NHL. At least you’e got the Rangers.
Boston would seem to have the best chance. You didn’t mention Chicago; they have two good chances at the World Series, and the Bears have at least a shot at the Super Bowl, if they had a QB. Basketball and hockey - not so much.
Also, you are a bit of a homer - the Cardinals are mentioned as a SB contender, while the Giants (and even the Jets, 2 years removed from the playoffs) are summarily dismissed as having no shot? Yeah, sure.
Well, obviously they do not. They’ve had recent success in three of the four sports but that was then and this is now. Every year’s a new year and it takes a sports franchise one year and a few bad trades or draft picks or injuries to go from contender to pretender. Going by how the teams seem NOW is a sucker’s bet; that changes too quickly and anyway as it stands there is no city with four strong contenders. The Bruins need some work.
The city with the best chance must be, by definition, the city with the most sports teams in the four leagues. The only city that qualifies, assuming that the Jets and Giants represent New York (they actually are based in New Jersey) is New York City, which has two baseball teams AND two football teams, and if you’re generous, two hockey teams. If you want to be really generous and assign New York the Nets and Devils, they have three hockey teams and two basketball teams; even without them, they have seven teams across the four leagues (again, I’m assigning them two NFL franchises, which I guess is more or less true) which is unmatched by any other city.
Of course, New York hasn’t a ghost of a chance of winning a basketball championship for a few years, but that’s true of at least one franchise in every city.
Detroit has had a pretty good shot in the past several years with the Tigers going to the World Series in '06, the Wings winning the Cup this year, and the Pistons always being good (but never quite good enough).
Bullshit. The Chargers are by no means an LA team. LA doesn’t have a football team, period. A lot of people up there are Raiders fans, anyway.
Even if San Diego is as close to LA as San Jose is to SF (I’m not sure and too lazy to check), San Diego is much more culturally distant and, without any similarly convenient public transportation system and very little commuting either way, there’s very little overlap between the two cities’ populations. Not a single mentally competent San Diegan will ever tell you, ever, that (s)he lives in the L.A. area, but lots of people from San Jose would probably say they live in the Bay Area.
True. I’m a native San Franciscan and consider the Warriors (they play in Oakland) and Sharks to be home teams without blinking.
Speaking of which, the Warriors made the Conference Semifinals in 88-89, the Giants & A’s went to the World Series in 1989, the 49ers won Super Bowl XXIV (Jan 1990). The Sharks didn’t yet exist but were more or less born in May 1990. So that’s a pretty good year.
In two years the Black Hawks will be really good. Mark my words, Toews will be regarded as a top 5 player in the league. I’m drawing a blank, but I know they made some decent moves this summer as well.
The Bulls SHOULD be good. Give them a few years as well.
The Cubs will keep spending money until they win. It might even be this year, which could be a problem for my theory.
I don’t know much about the Bears, but they WERE in the superbowl a year and a half ago.
Boston is your other choice but the Bruins are really dragging them down.
I could see the Red Wings,Pistons and possibly even the Tigers winning in the same year…but there is that football team…I think Buffalo would have a better chance of winning all four championships before Detroit does.
I know that San Diego isn’t part of the LA metro area just as Orlando isn’t part of the Tampa area.
I wanted to link the Chargers and the Magic to other cities because I thought it might make the discussion more interesting. I decided to not link Milwaukee with Minnesota because that was too much of a gap. But, if someone wants to make a Twins/Brewers/Packers/Wild/Wolves/Bucks argument, then go for it.
LOL, I guess you’re including the Raptors in Buffalo’s metro area. The Raptors aren’t going to win any NBA trophies. I don’t see the Sabres or the Leafs making a run at the Stanley Cup either. I don’t see the Argonauts taking the Grey Cup either.
Well, the Giants have a guaranteed loss on November 23. Their trip back to Phoenix won’t be the same. The Cardinals will beat them and beat them bad. Kinda like Eli Manning’s game againt the Vikings.
New York has to have the best chance. Two teams in every league (don’t forget the Nets) will outweigh any talent problems. That’s definitely true as an answer to “will it ever happen,” and given the sizable amount of chance involved in winning a championship (see: New York Giants), having extra teams is a huge advantage if you just look at the upcoming year.
I, like all lions fans, just keep believing that eventually they have to accidently stumble upon a winning formula. We just got to hope the other three stay strong until then.
Not as a direct answer. But, an interesting tidbit I picked up while thinking about this question. In 1927 the Rangers won the Stanley Cup, the Giants won the NFL championship and the Yankees won the World Series. Since there was no NBA at the time this was a sweep of the major sports. (Well a sweep of the semi major sports and one major at the time.)
New York might have the best chance to do it, but they already accomplished the feat, in a way.
