Boston Crowned As America's Most Successful Sports City; Pittsburgh Second

Everyone knows Boston is the best sports city in the United States. Now, we have proof.

“The Upshot,” an analytical blog in the New York Times, released a study recently tallying the percentage of championships won by each city’s “Big Four” sports teams in the last 50 years. And despite a certain curse that wasn’t lifted until this century and the long-time struggles of the New England Patriots and the Boston Bruins, the City of Champions came out on top.

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Boston teams have won championships in an amazing 10 percent of the total seasons they’ve played since 1965, the most of any U.S. city with at least two pro sports teams. Pittsburgh is second on the list at eight percent, while Los Angeles is a distant third at 6.3 percent.

San Antonio edges Boston with a 10.6 percent success rate, but that high number is due to a small sample size from its lone pro sports team, the San Antonio Spurs.

Of course, The Hub has its recent championship run to thank for this honor, as Boston teams have taken home nine titles since 2001. Outside the 21st century, the Boston Celtics are the main source of the city’s success, winning nine of the Boston’s 11 titles from 1965 to 2000. (The Boston Bruins are responsible for the other two, winning Stanley Cups in 1970 and 1972.)

Then, there’s the other side of the spectrum.

“The Upshot” also ranked the worst-suffering sports cities in America, and Cleveland earned that dubious honor with exactly zero championships in the last 50 years. LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers have a chance to change that in this year’s NBA Finals, but they certainly won’t have history on their side.