WHOOSH
p_t was referencing the NFL, which insists on calling Super Bowl winners “world champions” even though it’s the National Football League, and MLB, which equally ridiculously refers to its own championship as the World Series, even though it’s only open to teams from two countries.
To be fair, both the Super Bowl and the World Series do take place on Earth.
…yeah, I got nothin’.
The NFL can rightfully claim world champion status by virtue of nobody else in the world actually playing their sport. Ergo, they are the actual world champions because they won out of a pool of every team on earth.
MLB, OTOH, cannot make that claim, what with (for example) the Japanese league.
Actually, there are professional American Football leagues all over the world. Obviously, they aren’t very good, but that’s beside the point anyway. If you compete in a purely national league, you cannot claim in any sense to be a world champion, even if 99 out of 100 people would acknowledge that you are the best team in the world.
Agreed if there is a pro league in any other country. What other country does a pro American Football league exist in? (Neither Canada nor Australia count; that’d be like saying India plays baseball by virtue of cricket.)
Britain, Japan, Germany, a bunch of Central European countries…
Hell, there’s even a Europe-wide “Champions’ League”-style tournament, and a World Cup for national teams.
I don’t know what the hell you mean by saying Australia doesn’t count. It has six professional leagues.
Interesting stuff - I hadn’t heard of the IFAF before, or the World Cup of American Football.
Also interesting to note that the most recent such Cup was won by (surprise) the Americans (the first time they competed), fielding a team that appears to have been made up entirely of undrafted college players. 
I’ve always thought that the use of “World Champions” for American pro sports leagues was embarrassing. But not because there are other baseball, football, and basketball leagues in the world . . . does anyone doubt that the Yankees would crush the Japanese champions, the Lakers the Euroleague champions, etc.?
My objection is the utter insularity of it. Other countries have sports unique to their own borders. Does the Australian Football League champion declare themselves the World Champion? Does the Gaelic Athletic Association champion consider themselves the World Champions? Why did American sports pick up this odd tradition?
The proper objection to the “World Champion” conceit in American sports isn’t that it’s wrong. It’s that its stupid.
I was under the impression - although I don’t know where I heard it - that the World Series is named such because it was originally sponsored by a newspaper called The World. So it’s like the UK’s Barclay’s Premier League or what-have-you.
Cool info, thanks.
In fairness, though, those all appear to be semi-pro leagues, which is hardly the same thing as a professional league. As for Australia in particular, I was referring to Australian Rules Football, not the collection of amateur leagues that play American football. It would be like calling my buddy’s bowling league a professional league.
Meh. They get paid to play. Rugby Union was an amateur sport even at the international level until about 1993 - after the World Cup players would go back to their regular job as lawyers and engineers and train conductors.
In any case, as Piker notes, I don’t think it’s significant whether or not there are other teams. We all know that the Super Bowl champion would crush any foreign team (though I’m not sure that’s the case with baseball). It’s just that calling yourself a world champion when you play in the National Football League is dumb.
Oh, cool! You learn something new every day!