TitleTown USA: ESPN Serving Up Apples and Oranges
Christopher Gabriel | Jul 13, 2008 | Comments 13
By Christopher Gabriel
Blog Harbor and CGabriel.com
One of the great things about sports is that it creates more dialogue, debate and disagreement than a presidential campaign. Is Tennessee’s Neyland Stadium louder than the Swamp at Florida? Which is the best ballpark: Wrigley Field or Fenway Park? The best home court advantage in college basketball is Cameron Indoor Stadium, right? Or is it Mac Court in Eugene? On and on we can go with stadiums, players, fans and more.
ESPN has decided to combine cities with the teams that call them home and award one locale as TitleTown USA.
On their list of 20 finalists are eight college towns: Columbus (Ohio), Ann Arbor (Mich.), Knoxville (Tenn.), Gainesville (Fla.), Chapel Hill (N.C.), Lawrence (Kan.), Palo Alto (Calif.) and Louisville (Ky.). The pro cities, most with major colleges in them, are Green Bay, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, New York, Detroit and San Francisco. Toss in Williamsport (Pa.), Parkersburg (W.V.), Massillon (Ohio) and Valdosta (Ga.) and that makes 20.
It’s certainly an interesting idea, with ESPN visiting every finalist over the course of the month. The series is set to conclude on July 27. So why is the whole thing flawed?
Before answering that question, let’s start by clearing up one thing right from the start: Green Bay is not TitleTown USA. Whoever labeled the pride of Door County as such made a wrong turn in Racine. They’ve won 9 NFL Championships and 3 Super Bowls. Impressive? Sure. But this notion that a one-team pro town would ever legitimately deserve the name TitleTown USA over other cities with far more impressive resumes is ridiculous. Sorry cheeseheads, but outside of Wisconsin no serious sports fan thinks of Green Bay as anything but . . . well, the home of the Packers.
And as a starting point on your journey of enlightenment, travel south with me several hundred miles to begin understanding why Green Bay falls short.
The Chicago Bears have won seven NFL championships to go with their one Super Bowl win. Now, add in six NBA championships, the recent White Sox World Series championship (along with four more from the Sox and Cubs) and three Stanley Cups…those credentials alone qualify Chicago over Green Bay as TitleTown USA. And yet, Chicago – my hometown Chicago – doesn’t deserve to be in the top three let alone be named TitleTown USA.
But lest I get off track, my issue with this ESPN series has more to do with how The Total Sports Network has set this whole thing up. Trying to compare college and pro towns, and a few high school ones for that matter, on the same stage is ludicrous.
If you begin with Columbus, Ann Arbor and Gainesville, Ohio State, Michigan and Florida, respectively, have tremendous overall athletic programs while winning numerous national championships making their cities worthy of being called TitleTown USA. But do those three, or the other five college-only towns compare with, say, Los Angeles?
USC and UCLA combined have won nearly 200 national championships. That number alone is ridiculous. Either the Trojans or the Bruins on their own would immediately give Los Angeles the nod over any other college town in America with the possible exception of Palo Alto, where Stanford is closing in on 100 championships. But in L.A., add to the mix the Lakers, Dodgers, Angels and Raiders (their 1983 Super Bowl win when based in L.A.) and it’s absolutely no contest.
On the other hand, if you’re giving more weight to pro championships, does any city compare to New York or Boston? The answer is a resounding no. The Celtics and their 17 NBA championships to go with the Patriots three Super Bowl wins, the Red Sox seven World Series championships and the Bruins five Stanley Cups – Boston makes a compelling case for TitleTown USA.
And then there’s New York City.
When you combine the Yankees, Mets, Knicks, Nets (including ABA), Rangers, Islanders, Devils, Jets and Giants (including NFL championships), they have a combined 51 championships. That’s an even stronger argument than Boston.
So how do you truly anoint a city as TitleTown USA? Is it the number of championships? Do you throw in the dynasty factor? Does the relationship between a town and its teams count for anything?
Boston is a city much smaller than New York and over the years, the pro franchises there have spent far less than those of their Big Apple counterparts. When you combine those two variables, Boston’s championship pedigree seems far more impressive than that of New York.
At the college level, no one compares with UCLA, USC or Stanford. If you’re looking for a college town to plant the TitleTown USA flag, Los Angeles or Palo Alto are one and two.
And while I don’t believe sports fans in Los Angeles remotely compare to those in other pro towns like Boston, New York or Chicago, or in pure college towns like Knoxville or Gainesville when the discussion is limited to the passion, adoration and utter fanaticism those fans bring to their respective arenas and stadiums, the name of ESPN’s series is TitleTown USA. It’s not College TitleTown USA or Pro TitleTown USA. Neither is it Fan Noise TitleTown USA. It’s TitleTown USA.
When I scrutinize, puree and digest the data through the BHFOO – Blog Harbor Filter of Objectivity - I don’t believe there’s a better argument to be made for a city more worthy of the name TitleTown USA than Los Angeles, California.
Let the argument begin.
For Blog Harbor and more cool stuff visit CGabriel.com
Did ESPN really think this thing through? Next time they have one of these brilliant ideas, perhaps they should ring you up. “Mr. Gabriel, we would like to run something by you…” Sounds like a new career – Analyst to the Sports Analyst.
Cheerio!
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Let’s keep it on a pro-level, not an amateur level where 10s of colleges and universities can provide an unlevel playing field if you just count championships. If you want to include all the colleges in LA that have no championships and add that to the denominator, then fine. This really should be all about Pro Titles. So then it comes down to Boston and New York. New York has 9 teams and 51 championships (almost 6 per team). Boston has 4 teams and 32 championships (8 per team). Not to mention that Boston certainly has dominated this decade by far. Boston wins again.
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Bobby, you want it at a pro-only level, using your championships per team formula and placing weight on this decade, because it favors Boston. That’s a lot of qualifiers.
You’re essentially saying “you (New York) may have more championships but that’s only because there’s more teams…our average makes our 32 more impressive than your 51.”
For argument’s sake let’s pair down New York to its four original teams, from the nine, that have been there from the beginning: The Yankees, Giants, Rangers and Knicks. Those four have combined to win 39 championships, or almost 10 per team. That trumps Boston. Fair or not, it’s all in how one chooses to look at the numbers. That formula also looks pretty good to a Green Bay fan. He/she would say to you “we’ve only got 12 to your 32, but our average is 12 per team.” If it’s good for the goose…
And this: “If you want to include all the colleges in LA that have no championships and add that to the denominator, then fine.” Bobby, we could also add the plethora of colleges in the Boston area that have no, 0r very few, championships as well.
Remember, ESPN is calling it TitleTown USA, not Pro TitleTown Championships Per Team USA This Decade.
Boston may end up winning this thing, but as I’ve mentioned: How do you throw pro and college towns into the same mix? It’s apples and oranges.
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This is not the first ordeal that ESPN has screwed up. I don’t know if “screwed up” is the right phrase either. This should never have even made it past the idea board because it is non-sensible.
I think most of their ideas are only half way thought out. Their whole “Who’s Now” idea was just as ridiculous at this “Title Town” gimmick. Seriously? You are going to try and compare athletes across different sports. How can you compare, say Peyton Manning against Dale Earnhardt Jr.? Huh?
These shows are put together for one reason only and that is to attract as wide a net as possible to capture broad demographics. By doing this, they mix in interest from all parts of the country and across different legions of fans.
I would almost rather watch their perpetual onslaught of real sporting events such as the “World Series of Poker”.
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not to mention that the Patriots don’t even play in Boston…and the Giants/Jets should have been renamed to New Jersey long ago
So technically doesn’t Secaucus have more of a claim than Foxborough…
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When they considered New York City they had highlights of the Giants and Jets but they actually play in East Rutherford. So they have no football titles
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Valdosta, Ga. deserves it. We are competitive and Winners. We never give up, and we are dedicated to our sports. High-spirited people is what we are. VALDOSTA, GA–2008 TITLE TOWN USA.
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Sean, you’re kidding, right? With all due respect, try making your argument to generations of Giants and Jets fans who have supported the franchises, especially the Giants, long before their respective moves to the swampland of East Rutherford. They may play in Jersey, but they were born and bred in New York. There isn’t a member of either organization, not a single season ticket holder or a fan of either team that thinks of them as anything but New York.
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Valdosta Georgia has 440 state and national titles ina town of 50,000! Any other town simply can not compete with that!!
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Excellent post. Thanks for joining the TitleTown debate. Would have been interesting to have different divisions, but lumping everything gives people a chance to show what makes small high school towns and big college towns different from New York, Boston, L.A. and Chicago.
Anybody interested in voting can click on the index (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/titletown/index) starting July 23.
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I agree the idea is flawed, but I think it is classically flawed in the way sports is beautifully, and tragically, flawed. In sports, we love to hand out awards and titles that are ill-defined, the competition for each is not explicit, and the awarding of which is unsystematic–what does it mean to be an MVP or a Heisman award winner or, most discussed, a CF national champion? Because no one has really spelled out an answer, everyone is allowed to have their own definition that best fits their circumstance . . . and then we slug it on in comments sections and on discussion boards. Hooray sports.
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The giants and jets are nj all the way. nobody in nyc or nj thinks of them as an nyc team i live in nj and im a season ticket holder, and east rutheford also deserves to be considered. Giants superbowl devils were great there nets had a run they deserve it more than some of those high school and college towns. when u go pro talk to us
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Newsflash,
Valdosta has been officially notified that we are Titletown USA!
Go, Wildcats! Go, Vikings! Go, Blazers!
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