# Why do American sports fans call their champion teams "World Champions"? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [November 4, 2011, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-american-sports-fans-call-their-champion-teams-world-champions/601874 "2011-11-04T17:48:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-american-sports-fans-call-their-champion-teams-world-champions/601874/41 "2011-11-05T09:52:19Z")
Go easy, buddy. Relax. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-american-sports-fans-call-their-champion-teams-world-champions/601874/42 "2011-11-05T11:06:18Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > the top Japanese team might be able to triumph in a best of seven series over the top American major league team. Do you really think so? I’m not so sure. > [@Duke](#): > > You know, BTW, that the hot rumor around here is that in 2013 the Bills are going to move to Toronto and the Tiger-Cats are going to move to Buffalo. So the Bills are going to be your problem soon enough… I thought that the Canadian government had already apologized for Bryan Adams several times? There’s no need for that kind of retribution, is there? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-american-sports-fans-call-their-champion-teams-world-champions/601874/43 "2011-11-05T12:10:26Z")
> [@amanset](#): > > Speaking as a non-American, when there’s no available mechanism for foreign teams to challenge to become “world champions” it smacks of arrogance. It doesn’t matter if other countries are seen as crapper, unless there is a mechanism for international competition then you simply aren’t World Champions. This isn’t science. It’s marketing. A sports league is a commercial enterprise that will use whatever terminology benefits its brand. It’s an age-old tactic that’s recognized by the common law under the term “puffery.” “Mere puffery” is exempt from any cause of action based on a false statement if fact because no reasonable person will understand it to be an actual factual claim. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-american-sports-fans-call-their-champion-teams-world-champions/601874/44 "2011-11-05T12:26:59Z")
If some kind of perceived American “arrogance” is at the heart of the issue… well, there are two ways we can look at this. 1. Can you think of ANY team in the rest of the world that plays American-style football better than the Green Bay Packers? Neither can I. They’re the best American-style football team in the USA, which means they are, de facto, the best American-style football team in the world. Hence, they ARE the “world champions.” In the same way, the NBA champions undoubtedly ARE the best basketball team in the world, and the best team in Major League Baseball undoubtedly IS the best baseball team in the world. The rest of the world, of course, is perfectly free to yawn and say “Big deal. Who cares?” (And they do!) 2) Have you ever seen a restaurant with a sign saying “World’s Greatest Pizza” or “Best Burgers in the Universe” or “Our Margaritas Are World Famous”? I have, hundreds of times. Does ANYBODY get offended by such claims? Of COURSE not! And really, that’s all “World Champions” amounts to- a slogan. Nathan’s claims to have “World Famous Hot Dogs.” When I See that, do I sneer, “Yeah, sure, people in New Zealand and Ethiopia and Bangladesh and Ecuador have all heard of Nathan’s hot dogs?” Do I call Nathan’s “arrogant”? Of COURSE not. Again, it’s just a slogan. It’s puffery. There’s no need to take it seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Molesworth\_2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9dc877/32.png) [@Molesworth\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Molesworth_2)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-american-sports-fans-call-their-champion-teams-world-champions/601874/45 "2011-11-05T12:31:44Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I don’t see why they wouldn’t. India beat all the other countries that competed in the 2010 Kabbati World Cup tournament (including the United States). **You guys** beat us fair and square (62-26) and went on to beat Canada and Pakistan. India is clearly entitled to call themselves the World Champion of Kabaddi. (At least until November 20 anyway.) Erm, dude, I’m not Indian. If you thought that I was then you couldn’t be more mistaken. My point was that Kabaddi is similar to American Football in that it’s a niche sport that only one country on the face of the planet actually cares about… ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-american-sports-fans-call-their-champion-teams-world-champions/601874/46 "2011-11-05T14:49:48Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > If some kind of perceived American “arrogance” is at the heart of the issue… well, there are two ways we can look at this. > > 1. Can you think of ANY team in the rest of the world that plays American-style football better than the Green Bay Packers? Neither can I. > > They’re the best American-style football team in the USA, which means they are, de facto, the best American-style football team in the world. Hence, they ARE the “world champions.” Immaterial. Without any sort of method of being even open to international competition you simply are not World Champions. What people believe or think about how good a team is doesn’t come into it. Take football/soccer for example. I always thought (and pretty much knew) that my team, Coventry City, are pretty crap. Always have been. Yet in 1987 we won the FA Cup, we were the champions of football’s oldest competition, one that involves teams from the grass roots levels all the way up to the top tier (indeed, two seasons later we were knocked out by Sutton United, an amateur team several divisions below us). Yet, due to the nature of the competition, Coventry CIty could easily be described as the English champions. Yet any fool could have seen there were better teams out there (Coventry came tenth in division one that season). The problem is, they didn’t win the competition. Coventry did. Coventry were the champions because they took part in a competition and won it, the only valid way to be champions. Everything else is just idle speculation. Otherwise, why bother playing if you already know who are the champions? Simply deciding you are better than everyone else without bothering to put it to the test _is_ arrogant and, frankly, isn’t a decent metric. There’s only one way to know, to put it to the test. > [@astorian](#): > > 1. Have you ever seen a restaurant with a sign saying “World’s Greatest Pizza” or “Best Burgers in the Universe” or “Our Margaritas Are World Famous”? I have, hundreds of times. Does ANYBODY get offended by such claims? Of COURSE not! And really, that’s all “World Champions” amounts to- a slogan. > > Nathan’s claims to have “World Famous Hot Dogs.” When I See that, do I sneer, “Yeah, sure, people in New Zealand and Ethiopia and Bangladesh and Ecuador have all heard of Nathan’s hot dogs?” Do I call Nathan’s “arrogant”? Of COURSE not. > > Again, it’s just a slogan. It’s puffery. There’s no need to take it seriously. The difference is, there is a very, very simple way to decide who are the world’s best team at a sport. You have a competition where they all play against each other and the one that wins is world champions. Food is a different matter and actually is a whole new discussion, one that I think I have mentioned on this board before. I honestly believe that any “sport” that relies on judges to decide scores has no place in a sports competition (eg. the Olympics) as in the end it comes down to what a judge thought of it, rather than something clear cut like a ball in goal/through a hoop/carried into an endzone/touched on the floor or a man running round a diamond/up or down a strip. And food is the same, it comes down to someone’s opinion. How much they like the food. That’s just not the same as clear-cut rules regarding scoring. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-american-sports-fans-call-their-champion-teams-world-champions/601874/47 "2011-11-05T14:59:58Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > Go easy, buddy. Relax. I believe it is the man with the moderating powers that needs to relax. Or at least be willing to accept points of view that disagree with his own. Personally I’m not a fan of being accused of being a troll. A lot of people aren’t, which is why it isn’t allowed on this board apart from in the pit, a forum which this thread is not in. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-american-sports-fans-call-their-champion-teams-world-champions/601874/48 "2011-11-05T15:00:49Z")
You’re missing the point. It’s a product, an entertainment product. They can call it the greatest whatever they want with no objective justification whatsoever. The fact that you think that this is some kind of fact that must be proven or that it illustrates some kind if national character defect just illustrates a lack of perspective. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-american-sports-fans-call-their-champion-teams-world-champions/601874/49 "2011-11-05T18:52:42Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > You’re missing the point. It’s a product, an entertainment product. They can call it the greatest whatever they want with no objective justification whatsoever. The fact that you think that this is some kind of fact that must be proven or that it illustrates some kind if national character defect just illustrates a lack of perspective. By the same logic, surely, doesn’t that invalidate any named titles within the sport? I mean, in that sense, calling a team the NFL champions equally doesn’t require any factual support. You could declare any team you so wished to be the winners of the Superbowl without objective justification, and be as correct as any other person. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-american-sports-fans-call-their-champion-teams-world-champions/601874/50 "2011-11-05T19:03:13Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > By the same logic, surely, doesn’t that invalidate any named titles within the sport? I mean, in that sense, calling a team the NFL champions equally doesn’t require any factual support. You could declare any team you so wished to be the winners of the Superbowl without objective justification, and be as correct as any other person. And while we’re at it, what right does Budweiser have to call itself “the KING of beers” without any objective justification? It just wraps itself in its red white and blue can and calls itself “King”. I don’t see how other brewers put up with it. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-american-sports-fans-call-their-champion-teams-world-champions/601874/51 "2011-11-05T19:04:36Z")
> [@amanset](#): > > Immaterial. Without any sort of method of being even open to international competition you simply are not World Champions. Irrelevant. They’re world champions because that’s the name of the title. If you win the World Series, you’re World Champions in baseball; if you win the Superbowl, you’re world champions in football. The fact that there are other countries that play the sport is irrelevant. The title is “World Champion,” and thus they can call themselves World Champions. Let me say this more than once, since you continue to ignore the point. **“World Champion” is a title. It is not a description. “World Champion” is a title. It is not a description. “World Champion” is a title. It is not a description.** Now say that to yourself a few times until grasp the concept that a title is **not** a description. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-american-sports-fans-call-their-champion-teams-world-champions/601874/52 "2011-11-05T19:11:08Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Ia title is **not** a description. Amen. I just read _The Jungle_ by Upton Sinclair for the first time and there wasn’t a single goddamn tiger in the whole book! ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-american-sports-fans-call-their-champion-teams-world-champions/601874/53 "2011-11-05T19:32:51Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Irrelevant. They’re world champions because that’s the name of the title. If you win the World Series, you’re World Champions in baseball; if you win the Superbowl, you’re world champions in football. > > The fact that there are other countries that play the sport is irrelevant. The title is “World Champion,” and thus they can call themselves World Champions. > > Let me say this more than once, since you continue to ignore the point. > > **“World Champion” is a title. It is not a description. > “World Champion” is a title. It is not a description. > “World Champion” is a title. It is not a description.** > > Now say that to yourself a few times until grasp the concept that a title is **not** a description. Now you just need to explain why you think it is a title and not a description. Hell, we can’t even get a consensus in this thread about whether it is used, so how you can be so sure it is merely a title I do not know. For all your lovely big letters (congrats on finding the font size drop down, by the way), from my perspective it is used as a description. Those claiming to be “World Champions” genuinely act and feel as if they are World Champions. I came to that conclusion over years of watching US sport, starting in the mid 80s when they started showing Football on Channel 4 in the UK. To be honest, right now I am struggling to think of “It is a title, not a description” examples for any sports that are not US-centric. As others have said, the likes of Dublin GAA (Current All-Ireland Football Champions) or Geelong Cats (Current AFL Grand Final Winners) don’t seem to be parading “World Champions” as any sort of title. One final thing, apparently Superbowl I was known as the “First World Championship Game AFL vs NFL”, so clearly they thought it was a World Championship and not just a fun title given to the winner. This can be seen in the logo at the bottom of this page: > **[Super Bowl LIX: When, Where, & More | NFL.com](https://www.nfl.com/super-bowl/)** > > The home of Super Bowl LIX news, ticket, apparel & event info. Get Super Bowl Sunday info about the National Football League's championship game. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-american-sports-fans-call-their-champion-teams-world-champions/601874/54 "2011-11-05T19:38:35Z")
And let’s not get started on “NBA World Championship”. I mean, really? They managed to get “National” and “World” in the same championship name? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-american-sports-fans-call-their-champion-teams-world-champions/601874/55 "2011-11-05T19:40:31Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > By the same logic, surely, doesn’t that invalidate any named titles within the sport? I mean, in that sense, calling a team the NFL champions equally doesn’t require any factual support. You could declare any team you so wished to be the winners of the Superbowl without objective justification, and be as correct as any other person. No, it’s not the same logic. The term “NFL” and the term “Superbowl” and the term “Olympic” are among the many terms _reserved by law_ to a specific entity. The NFL owns the terms “NFL” and “Superbowl” and so they get to define what an “NFL champion” and a “Superbowl champion” are. Even if the terms had been unregistered, the established use in commerce of the term “Superbowl” as a designation of the origin of services would lead the public to understand a meaning relative to a specific entity. On the other hand, terms like “world’s champion,” “world’s greatest,” “world’s best,” are not terms in which any specific entity has any rights. More importantly, they are not terms in which it is _possible_ for any specific entity to have rights and define specifically. They are generic terms, and, as stated before, terms with an established history of use as puffery, both in the law and as understood by the public. “World’s champion” _has no specific meaning_, either by law or by tradition or by general understanding. For it to have any specific meaning, it would have to be a proprietary term put under the control of a specific entity. For example, before the advent of the modern Olympic movement, the term “olympic” had no specific commercial meaning and could have been used by everyone. Now, however, the term “Olympic” (among other terms) are reserved by law in many countries to a specific entity. The U.S. Code, for example, 36 U.S.C. § 220,506 states: > [@](#): > > (a) … the [United States Olympic Committee] has the exclusive right to use— > > (1) the name “United States Olympic Committee”; > > (2) the symbol of the International Olympic Committee, consisting of 5 interlocking rings, the symbol of the International Paralympic Committee, consisting of 3 TaiGeuks, or the symbol of the Pan-American Sports Organization, consisting of a torch surrounded by concentric rings; > > (3) the emblem of the corporation, consisting of an escutcheon having a blue chief and vertically extending red and white bars on the base with 5 interlocking rings displayed on the chief; and > > (4) the words “Olympic”, “Olympiad”, “Citius Altius Fortius”, “Paralympic”, “Paralympiad”, “Pan-American”, “America Espirito Sport Fraternite”, or any combination of those words. There is no legal or linguistic support for the proposition that the term “world champion” or similar terms have any specific meaning in commercial tradition, commercial practice, or in the general experience of the public. Not only that, but as stated before, there is _specific recognition_ in the common law of the practice of commercial puffery, which allows enterprises to use superlative terms to describe their goods and services without any expectation that they are factual claims. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-american-sports-fans-call-their-champion-teams-world-champions/601874/56 "2011-11-05T19:40:32Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Irrelevant. They’re world champions because that’s the name of the title. If you win the World Series, you’re World Champions in baseball; if you win the Superbowl, you’re world champions in football. I do not believe “World Champion” is an official term used by the NFL anymore. It’s used by people a lot, but it’s not actually what the winner of the Super Bowl is formally called. Originally, the AFL-NFL game WAS called the World Championship game, but they dropped that name in favour of “Super Bowl” and renamed the trophy the “Vince Lombardi Trophy,” so there’s no official “World Champion” styling involved now. [QUOTE=amanset] And let’s not get started on “NBA World Championship”. I mean, really? They managed to get “National” and “World” in the same championship name? [/QUOTE] Who uses that term? The NBA styles its champions the NBA Champions, its championship cntest the NBA Finals, and the trophy is the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy. Who calls it the “NBA World Championship”? The NBA apparently discontinued using that term 25 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-american-sports-fans-call-their-champion-teams-world-champions/601874/57 "2011-11-05T19:42:43Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > And while we’re at it, what right does Budweiser have to call itself “the KING of beers” without any objective justification? It just wraps itself in its red white and blue can and calls itself “King”. I don’t see how other brewers put up with it. Precisely so. I suppose the difference lies in that (and I admit I make an assumption here) some people do put _some_ stock in _some_ sporting titles. IOW; the particular argument I was arguing against would mean that there are no titles for any entertainment product which have any meaning. So to call Budweiser a beer mean nothing at all either, though of course this might well be your view already depending on your tastes. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-american-sports-fans-call-their-champion-teams-world-champions/601874/58 "2011-11-05T19:45:21Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > 1. Can you think of ANY team in the rest of the world that plays American-style football better than the Green Bay Packers? Neither can I. You keep saying stuff like this and _you know who_ will show up, fuck the thread Dio-style, cats and dogs will be living together, The Vikings will forever suck and the world will remain in imbalance, so stop it now for the love of Pete! ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-american-sports-fans-call-their-champion-teams-world-champions/601874/59 "2011-11-05T19:53:28Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > No, it’s not the same logic. The term “NFL” and the term “Superbowl” and the term “Olympic” are among the many terms _reserved by law_ to a specific entity. The NFL owns the terms “NFL” and “Superbowl” and so they get to define what an “NFL champion” and a “Superbowl champion” are. Even if the terms had been unregistered, the established use in commerce of the term “Superbowl” as a designation of the origin of services would lead the public to understand a meaning relative to a specific entity. Under what global jurisdiction do you make this appeal to law? > [@](#): > > On the other hand, terms like “world’s champion,” “world’s greatest,” “world’s best,” are not terms in which any specific entity has any rights. More importantly, they are not terms in which it is _possible_ for any specific entity to have rights and define specifically. They are generic terms, and, as stated before, terms with an established history of use as puffery, both in the law and as understood by the public. Merely because people recognise such terms as puffery, doesn’t mean that they still aren’t wrong. Nor does something having one generally accepted meaning _necessarily_ mean that it does not have other meanings. A literal reading of of the terms you cite suggest to me the best in the world, and indeed there are competitions which do use those terms which do make a claim to be globally representative, and which are used by the public to refer to such winners. If nothing else, if I claim that I am the “Best Football Player Ever”, you would be incapable of declaring that I am wrong? > [@](#): > > “World’s champion” _has no specific meaning_, either by law or by tradition or by general understanding. For it to have any specific meaning, it would have to be a proprietary term put under the control of a specific entity. I’d like a cite that it does not have specific meaning by general understanding. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2011, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-american-sports-fans-call-their-champion-teams-world-champions/601874/60 "2011-11-05T20:06:14Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I do not believe “World Champion” is an official term used by the NFL anymore. It’s used by people a lot, but it’s not actually what the winner of the Super Bowl is formally called. > > Originally, the AFL-NFL game WAS called the World Championship game, but they dropped that name in favour of “Super Bowl” and renamed the trophy the “Vince Lombardi Trophy,” so there’s no official “World Champion” styling involved now. > Who uses that term? > > The NBA styles its champions the NBA Champions, its championship cntest the NBA Finals, and the trophy is the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy. Who calls it the “NBA World Championship”? The NBA apparently discontinued using that term 25 years ago. Apparently enough people in Boston that Gregg Popovich felt compelled to publicly comment on it a massive year and a half ago: > **[NBA](https://www.nbcsports.com/nba)** > > Find all the latest NBA news, live coverage, videos, highlights, stats, predictions, and results right here on NBC Sports. > [@](#): > > There are no world champions in the NBA, so anybody that has the flag up that says world champions is not correct,” said Popovich prior to last night’s 94-73 Spurs win. “It’s not appropriate. > > … > > When someone mentioned Toronto, Pop said, “There’s a team in Canada. That’s true. The world’s bigger than North America. I know sometimes we as arrogant Americans don’t respond to the rest of the world, but it’s true. There’s a big world out there. Looks like I’m not the only one that sees it as arrogant then 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-american-sports-fans-call-their-champion-teams-world-champions/601874.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-american-sports-fans-call-their-champion-teams-world-champions/601874.md?page=4)