With game seven of the World Series about to start, it is a good time to note that we live in an era of sustained excellence in sports, a time when the same teams led by the same familiar superstar athletes keep winning championships in the four major North American professional sports leagues. The San Francisco Giants are on the verge of their 3^rd World Series Championship in Major League Baseball in the last 5-years, in June the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League won their 2^nd Stanley Cup Championship in the last 3-seasons, and later that same month the San Antonio Spurs won their 5^th National Basketball Association championship of the Tim Duncan/Gregg Popovich era by beating the Miami Heat in what was a rematch of the 2013 Finals. The same teams just keep on winning and it is hard for professional sports leagues to flourish when so few teams have legitimate chances to win championships, a fact which makes the present lack of variation at the top dangerous for the sustainability of the Big Four.

However it is also a time of excitement as teams and fan bases that have suffered decades of failure, mediocrity, and irrelevance have been challenging for and winning championships over at least the last five-years. To survive and thrive a sports league needs the fans of each team to have the legitimate hope that their favorite team can win a championship. The 2013 Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League won their first Super Bowl championship by beating the favored Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII; it was the first professional sports championship since the 1979 Supersonics won the NBA Championship, and it means even more because the Sonics moved to Oklahoma City in 2008, leaving the city without any championship-winning organizations. The same LA Kings listed above as one of the examples of sustained excellence only won their first Stanley Cup Championship in 2012, 46-years after the team began play. The Kansas City Royals have a chance to win the World Series tonight, but prior to this month, the franchise had not even made the playoffs since it won the 1985 World Series.

To understand if sports leagues have too little rotation at the top, it is important to choose a specific time period to compare the results of each of the sports leagues. This is the 15^th season since the start of the 21^st century, so it would make a good starting point, however since the MLB and NFL seasons have not yet concluded and the NHL lost the entire 2004-05 season to a lockout, we’ll use 1999 as the start point, giving us 16 NBA seasons and 15 seasons of data for the other three leagues. That means that if there was perfect parity in each league, there would have been 16 distinct NBA champions and 15 of the other three sports leagues. In reality of course, it has been quite different. The NBA has had the least change at the top, as only six teams have made up those 16 slots; the Spurs and Lakers have each won five championships since the 1998-99 NBA season, the Heat have won three, and the Pistons, Celtics, and Mavericks each won once even though each of those three teams made the Finals twice. MLB has had a bit more parity with nine teams winning 15-World Series: the Yankees and Red Sox have each won three championships (and with one more win, the SF Giants would join them and there would be nine teams accounting for 16 instead of 15), the Cardinals and Giants have won two-a-piece, while the Diamondbacks, Angels, Marlins, White Sox, and Phillies have each won once. The NFL has done one better than MLB, as 10-teams have won 15 Super Bowls; the Patriots lead the way with three, while the Steelers, Giants, and Ravens have all won twice, and the Rams, Buccaneers, Colts, Saints, Packers, and Seahawks have all won once. The NHL has had the most change at the top, as 11 teams have won the Stanley Cup since the 1998-99 season; the Devils, Red Wings, Blackhawks, and Kings have all won twice while the Stars, Avalanche, Lightning, Hurricanes, Ducks, Penguins, and Bruins have each won once. In just the last 10-seasons the White Sox ended an 88-year drought, the Blackhawks won for the first time since 1961, the Giants won their first championship since moving to San Francisco before the 1958 season, the Saints and Seahawks won the first Super Bowls in their histories, the Bruins won for the first time since 1972, and the Mavericks won their franchise’s first NBA championship. However, many of those same teams have kept on winning even after ending their droughts, in the process extending droughts for other teams and leading to less variation at the top.

Tonight will determine whether the Giants are building a dynasty or if the Royals can bring Kansas City a pro sports championship for the first time since 1985. If the Giants win their fans will rejoice, but if the Royals win it will be a far more important win for Major League Baseball. Can a David rise up and knock off a Goliath? In a few hours we’ll know.

Post World Series Update: The Giants won 3-2. They have now won three championships in five-years, becoming only the 8th team to win at least three in a five-year span after the: 1910-13 Philadelphia A’s (winning in ’10-’11 and ’13), 1912-18 Red Sox (The Sox won in ’12, ’15-’16,and ’18 to give them four World Championships in seven-years), 1936-43 Yankees (The Yanks won four championships in a row from ’36-’39, and then won again in ’41 and ’43 to give them 6 in 8-years), 1942-46 Cardinals (like these Giants the Cards won in every even-year in a five-year period, winning in ’42, ’44, and ’46), 1947-’62 Yankees (these Yanks are the real gold standard when people talk about the Yankee dynasty; they won in ’47, set the MLB record by winning five-straight championships from ’49-’53, and won again in ’56, ’58, and ’61-’62. All in all they won 10 championships in a 16-year span, and won the AL Pennant every year from ’47-’64 except for ’48, ’54, and ’59, which is an unbelievable 15 times in 18-seasons), 1972-’74 A’s (The only other team than the Yankees to ever win three consecutive World Championships is this underrated Oakland dynasty), 1996-2000 Yankees (Winning in ’96 and then from ’98-2000 for four-in-five years. The team also won six AL Pennants in an eight-year span from ’96-2003), and now these SF Giants. Considering that the WS has existed for over a century it is a pretty short list. So congratulations to the SF Giants and their fans on joining this list of MLB’s greatest dynasties; now would you please stop winning so some other team can have a turn?