Now that Super Bowl XLV is in the books and the Packers have been crowned king of the National Football League. We can now sit back and examine this whole championship thing. For year's I've often wondered why our professional sports teams call themselves "World Champions" once they win the league championship. The NFL, NBA as well as MLB all do it. Why?
I think that it's par for the course for Americans to be arrogant and this is just another reason why people from other countries have such distaste for us. How can you call yourself a "World Champion" when you didn't compete on a world stage? The Lakers aren't the world champions! People play basketball all over the world and the NBA is just one of many leagues. The same goes for Major League Baseball. How can we call it the "World Series" when the only teams that are playing are from America?
The only true "World Champions" are the guys that participate in the World Cup in soccer or the tennis players and golfers etc. The entire world is involved in those tournaments. So whoever wins is the true "World Champion".
Now that the Packers have won the Super Bowl everybody will be introducing them as the "World Champions" and no one is going to blink.
Sometimes we need to check ourselves and our attitudes about who and what we are. Sure, we probably have some of the best athletes in the world. However, that doesn't mean that we've got the best teams in the world. I can remember just recently in 2004 when the U.S. Olympic basketball team picked up a bronze medal. We probably had the best set of athletes in the tournament but we didn't have the best team. So to say that we've got the best athletes and therefore we should call our league champions "World Champions" is arrogant.
If there were a world tournament played every year for all of the baseball, basketball and football league champions that would be great. If we win those "world series", if you will, then you can wear the tag "World Champion", but not until then. What's your opinion?
Jay Graves
jaygraves@thejaygravesreport.com
follow me on Twitter: @jaygravesreport
Ha Ha Ha...great question. Not sure why we like to use the term "World Champions". It certainly does contribute towards the arrogant attitude Americans are accused of having. I must admit, World Champions sounds better than National Champions or American Champions. Perhaps, atleast in regards to NBL and NBA, we could call the victors the "American/Canadian Champions".
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