Wonderopolis Project
What is the most successful sports team?
Introduction
First off, how do you define success for a sports team? This question could probably result in different answers depending on who is answering it. Is the program with the most amount of wins the most successful or the program with the most championships? For me, I think the measure of success for a sports team is the number of championships they have. For example, the Pittsburgh Steelers have the most Super Bowls all time in the NFL. However, if you asked the average NFL fan who the most successful franchise is, many would disagree. In the NFL, the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers have the most overall wins, so many would point to these franchises as being the most successful. Similarly, the Michigan Wolverines are the winningest program in College Football history, but the Alabama Crimson Tide dominate Michigan in the amount of National Titles they possess. Most college football fans, including myself and my friends Robert Beckley and Steven Yates, think Alabama is the most successful.
Now that we have clarified what success means for sports teams, what sports team fits this criteria to be the greatest of all time? The New York Yankees. As much as it pains me to write this, because I possess much disdain for the New York Yankees, they are the greatest and most successful sports franchise of all time. They currently possess 27 World Series titles, while the St. Louis Cardinals have the second most at 11. The Yankees have more than DOUBLED the number of titles than their nearest competitor. That is incredible. On top of that, the Yankees have reached the World Series game 13 other times and lost, meaning they have made it to the championship series 40 times out of their 112 year existence. FORTY times.
And if anyone has the argument that it's not all about the titles, but about the overall wins, the Yankees dominate that category too, winning .569 percent of their games all time, which dwarfs their nearest competitor at .538. The Yankees have dominated the MLB throughout their entire history and claim some of the most popular legends in baseball history like Babe Ruth, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, and many many others. They are the most recognizable american sports brand in the world, and most likely forever will be. It would take a miraculous run of another franchise and an unlikely fall by the Yankees for there to be any chance of unseating the New York Yankees as the most successful sports team of all time.
Activities
2. Do your own research. There are countless articles, studies, and theories about who the most successful sports teams are. Here is an example study that simply uses overall winning percentage (in contrast to my technique), showing that there will always be clashes of opinion.