Champion Heat Index

So this is a fun little idea thats been noodling around, I was curious where the best place to live is geographically to see pro sports championships. Obviously New York and Los Angeles have literally double the number of teams as anyone else but thats not the point, I just want to know where the hottest sports cities are…


I wanted a championship to always provide a city with some score, albeit with more recent ones counting for more, so I decide on a simple inversion of years since championship. So the current champions in any sport will get a score of 1 / 1 = 1 while a championship 50 years ago would provide 1 / 50 = 0.02 points to a city’s heat index. Stil counts for something, it will always be greater than 0 but you can see how strong the receny bias is.


This quickly divulged into figuring out which city is the current pro sports champion based the combined scores of all pro sports championships in each city. A champion of champions if you will. Spoilers, as of writing this its currently Los Angeles with a score of 3.303.


Numbers are fun, but the whole goal is to look at geography and see where I need to move to. I dusted off the trusty old D3 (now on version 7!) and mapped out the scores. Also, soooorry Canada, your data isn’t in the Alber’s topographical map I used…


The redder the better, and Los Angeles sticks out like a sore thumb. The East Coast Titans of New York and Boston perpetual remain high with some out-in-the-plains cities overperforming recently. The midwest fascinated me as well, because while there aren’t any super hot cities, they are a lot of champions throughout history in the rust belt.

Now to break down the data further. This is a chart of every city that has ever won a championship and the current points distribution across the five major sports. Keep in mind that a current year champion in a sport will get 1 full point, so you can easily pick out the current winners (Las Vegas in hockey, Denver in basketball).


I found it interesting that the only cities to have won in every sport are New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and DC - although Denver, Boston, Toronto, and St. Louis are quite close. It also tickles me that New York has such a high baseball score despite not having won a world series since the 2009 Yankees…

Finally, I thought it would be interesting to see historically who has held the crown of Pro sports champion, so I ran the calculations for each year.


You can really see some sports eras in the data - the Yankees multi-decade chokehold on baseball, the 60’s Boston Celtics, and the recent dominance of Los Angeles across a number of sports. Of course you would expect to see New York and Los Angeles on top most years but the occasional generational dynasty in a smaller city has made it to the top.


If your city was currently champion in every sport, you would of course have a minimum score of 5, but no city has ever achieved that. New York’s 4.469 in 1955 is the peak anyone has accomplished, all the more impressive given that soccer and football weren’t pro enough yet for my data.


In recent times, Los Angeles has seen a number of spikes with a peak during the Shaq-Kobe Laker era of 4.380 in 2002. Los Angeles has really done well across the board in the modern age, compared to New York’s Bronx-Bombing to the top.

Parsed Data

Should anyone care to spot check my data :)

Year MLB NFL NBA MLS NHL
1903 Boston        
1904          
1905 New York        
1906 Chicago        
1907 Chicago        
1908 Chicago        
1909 Pittsburg        
1910 Philadelphia        
1911 Philadelphia        
1912 Boston        
1913 Philadelphia        
1914 Boston        
1915 Boston        
1916 Boston        
1917 Chicago        
1918 Boston        
1919 Cincinatti        
1920 Cleveland        
1921 New York        
1922 New York        
1923 New York        
1924 DC        
1925 Pittsburg        
1926 St. Louis        
1927 New York       Ottawa
1928 New York       New York
1929 Philadelphia       Boston
1930 Philadelphia       Montreal
1931 St. Louis       Montreal
1932 New York       Toronto
1933 New York       New York
1934 St. Louis       Chicago
1935 Detroit       Montreal
1936 New York       Detroit
1937 New York       Detroit
1938 New York       Chicago
1939 New York       Boston
1940 Cincinatti       New York
1941 New York       Boston
1942 St. Louis       Toronto
1943 New York       Detroit
1944 St. Louis       Montreal
1945 Detroit       Toronto
1946 St. Louis       Montreal
1947 New York   Philadelphia   Toronto
1948 Cleveland   Baltimore   Toronto
1949 New York   Minneapolis   Toronto
1950 New York   Minneapolis   Detroit
1951 New York   Rochester   Toronto
1952 New York   Minneapolis   Detroit
1953 New York   Minneapolis   Montreal
1954 New York   Minneapolis   Detroit
1955 New York   New York   Detroit
1956 New York   Philadelphia   Montreal
1957 Milwaukee   Boston   Montreal
1958 New York   St. Louis   Montreal
1959 Los Angeles   Boston   Montreal
1960 Pittsburg   Boston   Montreal
1961 New York   Boston   Chicago
1962 New York   Boston   Toronto
1963 Los Angeles   Boston   Toronto
1964 St. Louis   Boston   Toronto
1965 Los Angeles   Boston   Montreal
1966 Baltimore   Boston   Montreal
1967 St. Louis Green Bay Philadelphia   Toronto
1968 Detroit Green Bay Boston   Montreal
1969 New York New York Boston   Montreal
1970 Baltimore Kansas City New York   Boston
1971 Pittsburg Baltimore Milwaukee   Montreal
1972 Oakland Dallas Los Angeles   Boston
1973 Oakland Miami New York   Montreal
1974 Oakland Miami Boston   Philadelphia
1975 Cincinatti Pittsburg Oakland   Philadelphia
1976 Cincinatti Pittsburg Boston   Montreal
1977 New York Oakland Portland   Montreal
1978 New York Dallas DC   Montreal
1979 Pittsburg Pittsburg Seattle   Montreal
1980 Philadelphia Pittsburg Los Angeles   New York
1981 Los Angeles Oakland Boston   New York
1982 St. Louis San Francisco Los Angeles   New York
1983 Baltimore DC Philadelphia   New York
1984 Detroit Los Angeles Boston   Edmonton
1985 Kansas City San Francisco Los Angeles   Edmonton
1986 New York Chicago Boston   Montreal
1987 Minneapolis New York Los Angeles   Edmonton
1988 Los Angeles DC Los Angeles   Edmonton
1989 Oakland San Francisco Detroit   Calgary
1990 Cincinatti San Francisco Detroit   Edmonton
1991 Minneapolis New York Chicago   Pittsburg
1992 Toronto DC Chicago   Pittsburg
1993 Toronto Dallas Chicago   Montreal
1994   Dallas Houston   New York
1995 Atlanta San Francisco Houston   Newark
1996 New York Dallas Chicago DC Denver
1997 Miami Green Bay Chicago DC Detroit
1998 New York Denver Chicago Chicago Detroit
1999 New York Denver San Antonio DC Dallas
2000 New York St. Louis Los Angeles Kansas City Newark
2001 Phoenix Baltimore Los Angeles San Jose Denver
2002 Los Angeles Boston Los Angeles Los Angeles Detroit
2003 Miami Tampa Bay San Antonio San Jose Newark
2004 Boston Boston Detroit DC Tampa Bay
2005 Chicago Boston San Antonio Los Angeles  
2006 St. Louis Pittsburg Miami Houston Raleigh
2007 Boston Indianapolis San Antonio Houston Los Angeles
2008 Philadelphia New York Boston Columbus Detroit
2009 New York Pittsburg Los Angeles Salt Lake City Pittsburg
2010 San Francisco New Orleans Los Angeles Denver Chicago
2011 St. Louis Green Bay Dallas Los Angeles Boston
2012 San Francisco New York Miami Los Angeles Los Angeles
2013 Boston Baltimore Miami Kansas City Chicago
2014 San Francisco Seattle San Antonio Los Angeles Los Angeles
2015 Kansas City Boston Oakland Portland Chicago
2016 Chicago Denver Cleveland Seattle Pittsburg
2017 Houston Boston Oakland Toronto Pittsburg
2018 Boston Philadelphia Oakland Atlanta DC
2019 DC Boston Toronto Seattle St. Louis
2020 Los Angeles Kansas City Los Angeles Columbus Tampa Bay
2021 Atlanta Tampa Bay Milwaukee New York Tampa Bay
2022 Houston Los Angeles San Francisco Los Angeles Denver
2023   Kansas City Denver   Las Vegas

Sources