The beauty of the four-sport town
If you like to catch a game there, you seldom have to wait too long.
I was blessed growing up. As a kid who was into sports, I had the opportunity to play most of the major ones in my backyard since it was large enough to accommodate a full-length football field, most of a regulation ballpark (borrowing the neighbor’s back yard for right field), a pond where we could (in theory) play pickup hockey, and a basketball hoop by the garage. There was enough space for a “pitch and putt” golf hole if we wanted it, too. (We even made an impromptu bowling lane in the basement, with plastic balls and pins, of course.) So how did I not become an athlete? Oh yeah, that coordination and talent thing.
But when I wasn’t playing them, I was watching them. Back then, pre-cable, we could watch the Lions and Browns pretty much every Sunday from our Toledo station, but our antenna received Detroit stations well enough to check out the telecasts of the Tigers, Red Wings, and Pistons as well. (And that didn’t count the CFL game of the week and Hockey Night in Canada since we also picked up the CBC station in Windsor, Ontario.)
Yet there was one factor missing. I never saw a Tigers game in person until a month before my 35th birthday, just before I covered both the Lions and Browns sitting in the Dawg Pound right after 9/11 interrupted the sports world. Of all the teams in Detroit, the first one I saw in person was the Pistons back when they played in the Pontiac Silverdome. (They were playing the Cleveland Cavaliers and a guy I got to watch for four years in college, Ron Harper. So this would have been somewhere around 1986 or 1987.) Still haven’t seen the Red Wings, even as a road team in Washington, D.C. or Philadelphia.
So, while I enjoyed my misspent rural youth playing on five acres, I sometimes wondered what it would have been like to have teams seemingly at your beck and call in the area. Detroit is one of a handful of what I call “four-sport” towns, cities that have at least one franchise in the four majors: MLB, NFL, NHL, and NBA. Given their schedules and assuming no overlap, it’s possible to have a live sporting event in that city 173 days a year - more for those cities with multiple teams in each sport.
Since I had a little downtime over my holiday break, I figured out that there are 14 “4-sport” cities or regions now: Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Washington D.C., the Bay Area (Oakland for now/San Francisco/San Jose), and Toronto (if you count the CFL Argonauts as their football team.)
Since 1946, when the NBA began under a different name, there have been several other cities which had the coveted title for some period of time. Most of them have slipped into “three-sport” status (which still isn’t bad for coverage) but a few have fallen farther.
Atlanta: three sport since the NHL Thrashers moved out after the 2010-11 season. When they’ve had hockey (1972-80 with the Flames, 1999-2011 with the Thrashers) they have been four-sport.
Cleveland: three sport since the NHL Barons merged with another team in 1978. Prior to the brief run of the Barons (the former Oakland Seals), the city had a World Hockey Association team by the name of the Crusaders from 1972-76. (To me that’s a cool name.)
Houston: similar to Cleveland, three sport since their WHA team (the Aeros) ceased operations in 1978. They have never had an NHL franchise.
Kansas City: for the briefest of periods from 1974-76, they had four teams when the NHL expanded there with the Scouts. (That franchise has since moved twice to eventually become the New Jersey Devils, adding to the New York area total.) They were three-sport until the NBA Kansas City Kings relocated to Sacramento after the 1984-85 season. Now they just have the Chiefs and Royals, who are next-door neighbors.
Pittsburgh: unlike the others, they have a successful hockey team but couldn’t make basketball work with either the ABA Pipers or Condors from 1968-72, with a season off from 1969-70. So now they’re a happy black-and-gold clad three-sport town.
San Diego: where franchises go to die. But there was one glorious season (well, sort of, since the Padres and Chargers were nothing special in that era) where San Diego was a four-sport city. In 1974-75 they had the aforementioned two with the ABA San Diego Conquistadors (who would change their name to the Sails over the summer of 1975 and fold by year’s end) and the WHA San Diego Mariners, who ceased operations in 1977. They would be a three-sport city again for awhile when the Clippers showed up in 1978, only to lose them to Los Angeles six years later. Now they are down to just the Padres since the Chargers moved back to Los Angeles, too.
St. Louis: Like Pittsburgh, they enjoyed four-sport status when they could keep a basketball team. But 1967-68 was their lone season with both the NHL Blues and NBA Hawks, before the latter bailed to their current Atlanta home. A few years later, the ABA moved a team there and called them the Spirits of St. Louis, but that only lasted two seasons, from 1974-76. Eventually they lost the football Cardinals and only had two sports, and the reprieve of the Rams was only for sixteen years, ending in 2015. Now they only have the Cardinals and Blues.
So which cities have had the most to cheer for?
It’s no surprise that New York, with all of its teams, leads in the 1946-2023 era with 38 championships. What may surprise you is that baseball only has 20 of them (mostly the Yankees, of course) with eight Stanley Cups between the Rangers, Islanders, and Devils, 6 ABA/NBA titles, and four NFL Championships.
In second place, though, is Boston, mainly because the Celtics had a magical run in the 1950s and 1960s. They account for 17 of the 30 total titles, with the Patriots adding six AFL and NFL titles, the Red Sox picking up four World Series championships, and three Stanley Cups by the Bruins.
Next up is another city with a lot of teams, Los Angeles. Half of their 24 titles, though, are courtesy of the Lakers, who have had 12 NBA championships, but between them the Dodgers and Angels have chipped in six, three have come courtesy of their hockey teams (Kings and Ducks), and three NFL championships from the Raiders and Rams when they played there.
This one comes with a bit of an asterisk, but Toronto comes next with 23 championships. Twelve of those are Grey Cups won by the Argonauts, which brings the asterisk because the CFL is a much smaller league. The Maple Leafs come in next with eight Stanley Cups, while the Blue Jays add 2 and the Raptors one.
Rounding out the top five is the amalagation of the Bay Area, which I count as San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. But San Jose (nor their aforementioned Oakland predecessor) hasn’t carried a lot of weight because hockey hasn’t contributed any of their 20 titles. Instead, the spoils are neatly divided between baseball (seven between the Giants and A’s), football (seven between the 49ers and Raiders) and six by Golden State in basketball.
Next up is my close-by hometown of Detroit, with sixteen championships won between the Red Wings (8), Tigers (3), Pistons (3), and Lions (2). They’ve been in a bit of a drought, though, since the last title won was the 2008 Stanley Cup.
The other city with sixteen titles is Chicago, where they were led by “da Bulls” with six NBA titles, four NFL championships from “da Bears,” four Stanley Cups from the Blackhawks (or Black Hawks, depending on era), and a World Series title apiece from the White Sox and Cubs.
The city of brotherly love (but mediocre sports teams), Philadelphia has 12 titles to its credit: four for the NFL Eagles, four from their basketball teams, whether Warriors (2) or 76ers (2), two Stanley Cups from the Flyers, and two World Series crowns for the Phillies.
Dallas has only been a four-sport town since 1993, but they had enough success before then to garner nine titles. Six of them belong to the Cowboys, with one apiece from the NBA Mavericks, NHL Stars, and (most recently) the Rangers.
1993 was also the birth of Miami as a four-sport town, with the Heat having three crowns, the Dolphins a pair of Super Bowls, and the Marlins winning two World Series. Only the NHL Panthers haven’t contributed to their seven titles.
Two years later, Denver joined the club when they got a hockey team to stay. Three of their seven championships came from that hockey team, the Colorado Avalanche, while three of the other four coming from the Denver Broncos. Last year the NBA Nuggets joined the party with their first NBA title, so they are defending champs.
Minneapolis also has seven titles, but most of those date from the days they had one team: the Minneapolis Lakers won five NBA titles before bailing to Los Angeles in 1960. The other two championships belong to the Twins, meaning the North Stars, Wild, Timberwolves, and Vikings (particularly the Vikings) are/were oh-fer. They’ve been in a championship drought since 1991 - I thought Detroit’s was bad!
Washington, D.C. did without a baseball team for decades, but they’ve also struggled as a sports town, winning just six championships. Three of those titles went to the Redskins (pre-Commanders), while the Nationals, Bullets (pre-Wizards), and Capitals have one championship apiece. I think they lead all of sports in name changes?
Last but not least is the city that’s gained three franchises in the last 30 years, Phoenix. Their one and only title came from the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks, so they’re overdue as well. (They came close to another this past baseball season.)
Out of the three-sport cities, some have been rather successful:
Pittsburgh 15 (6 NFL, 5 NHL, 3 MLB, 1 ABA)
Cleveland 10 (8 NFL, 1 MLB, 1 NBA)
Tampa 5 (3 NHL, 2 NFL)
Houston 4 (2 NBA, 2 MLB)
Atlanta 2 (both MLB)
Seattle 2 (1 NFL, 1 NBA)
So it’s apparent why some fan bases seem very passionate and others much more mellow. I think passion comes with practice, and when you can go watch a sports event locally over 150 days a year, that builds a fandom.
I admit this wasn’t as baseball-based as my usual fare, but I thought I could get away with the crossover.
Until next time, remember you can Buy Me a Coffee since I have a page there.