I always thought it was strange for a sports league that has 29 teams in one country, and 1 token team in a neighboring, less populated country, to call its champions "World Champions".
Even more insane for a league like that to call its championship series "The World Series".
I mean, wouldn't you think it would be weird if a sports league with 29 teams in China and 1 team in North Korea called its champions "the world champions"?
Or if a league that has 29 teams in India and 1 team in Nepal would call its champions "the world champions"?
The USA isn't even as populated as China or India. But yet, the National Basketball Association (NBA) calls its champions "the world champions", and Major League Baseball calls its championship series the "World Series".
So USA track athlete Noah Lyles said it right when he said of the NBA champions "the world champions of what? The United States?"
ESPN loudmouth Stephen A. Smith felt Lyles was disrespecting the NBA players.
No, he was making an accurate but funny statement about how silly it is for the league and the US media to call their own country's league "world champions".
Does the NBA have teams worldwide? No? Then their champions aren't world champions.
Yes, I know many of the top international players play in the NBA and the MLB. But they're not playing in a world league, they're playing in a league that has 29 teams in the US, and 1 token team in Canada. That's not the world.
The European soccer/fútbol leagues have the top players in their sport from around the world. But their league champions aren't called "world champions". They save that title for the winners of the World Cup.
Now, when Team USA wins basketball gold (which is the majority of the time), I wouldn't hesitate to call them world champions. Because they earned that title by playing teams from around the world!
