L.A. is OK but not great when it comes to sports championships

The Atlantic's Richard Florida and a couple of his colleagues assembled a list of cities that have pro titles. As you might guess, NY is comfortably on top with 59 championships, followed by Chicago at 29, Boston and Montreal at 24 each, L.A. with 23 and Detroit with 22. The standout city, however, is tiny Green Bay, which has 13 titles. That's more than Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Miami, Dallas, Minneapolis and Phoenix.

Green Bay's exceptional nature becomes even clearer when we gauge its "championship location quotient." We base this on a modified location quotient which allows us to compare a metro's relative share of the major league home population with its relative share of championships. A ratio of 1.0 means a metro's share is exactly in line with the pattern for all major league cities. It's worth pointing out that our championship location quotient measure will be more skewed than a traditional location quotient since it considers only 47 of some 350 plus metro areas. Still, Green Bay's CLQ is a staggering 22, meaning the metro has won 22 times the number of championships that its size would predict - and not just in football, but across all four professional sports (never mind the fact that Green Bay only has football). The next highest CLQ is Boston's 3; Montreal's is 2.75 and Pittsburgh's 2.65. Detroit (2.1) and Edmonton (2.0) are the only other metros with a CLQ of more than 2. Greater New York's is 1.34, Chicago's 1.28, and LA's .75, while other larger metros like Dallas (.46), greater Washington DC (.45), Miami (.37) and Houston (.28) have even lower CLQs.

Interesting, but there are a few factors worth considering. NY has had many more sports franchises than any other city, and one of them, the Yankees, has won more World Series titles than any team in baseball. Sunbelt cities don't have many championships because their franchises are relatively new (notice a heavy skew towards cities in the northeast and Midwest that have the oldest teams). And of course L.A. has been without pro football for 15+ years.