Believe it or not…something happened in 2020 that almost never occurs!

The Los Angeles Dodgers winning the World Series just weeks after the L.A. Lakers defeated the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals 4-2, completed the unusual occurrence of a city or metro area holding duel world championships.

Only Detroit, “The City of Champions” has held three major sports championships simultaneously. Detroit earned the nickname in 1935-36, when all three of their major sports teams, Tigers (MLB), Lions (NFL) and Red Wings (NHL) won all three of those world championships.

When Tom Brady arrived in New England in 2000, Boston teams had been on a 15 year-long championship drought, dating back to Larry Bird’s 1986 Celtics. Brady promptly won Super Bowl Championships with the Patriots in 2002, 2004 and 2005. In subsequent baseball seasons the Red Sox would bring in Brady to throw out the first pitch of the season, likely in hopes that his winning ways would rub off.

Remarkably, the Red Sox joined the Patriots as World Champions in 2004. It was the Red Sox’ first World Series title in 86 years, breaking the “curse of the Bambino” (Babe Ruth).

The Patriots and Red Sox repeated the double championship again in 2018.

Interestingly enough, between those two doubles, the Red Sox won another title in the fall of 2007and the Boston Celtics won their first NBA title in 21 years the following June.

In between those championships, Brady and the Patriots went undefeated in the regular season and playoffs but lost in the Super Bowl when David Tyree of the New York Giants made an incredible late-game catch off the back of his helmet.  “The catch”, as it was later called, set up the Giants dramatic three-point upset, disrupting the closest bid of any city to join Detroit by holding three title at once.

After 20 seasons and six Super Bowl championships, Brady left New England after the 2019 season to join the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a city suffering through a 15 year title drought.

Within months of Brady’s arrival, the Lightning, Tampa Bay’s NHL team, broke the drought by winning the Stanley Cup.  Not long after that, the Tampa Bay Rays were MLB World Series runners-up and their professional soccer team, the Tampa Bay Rowdies, made it to the USL Championship final.  The title match, which was set for Nov. 1 against Phoenix Rising FC was cancelled due to coronavirus concerns.

This year’s Super Bowl will be played in Tampa Bay at Raymond James stadium. Tom Brady and the Buccaneers, currently at 7-3, will have a chance to add Tampa Bay to the short list of multi-titled cities in their home stadium.

New York and Los Angeles are the only two metro areas that have two teams in each major sport.  That’s eight teams per city for a total of 16 teams. Yet neither city ever held more than two titles simultaneously.

Oddly enough, with all the teams competing for titles, New York professional sports are currently experiencing their longest championship drought in history.  Their last championship parade was over eight years ago, when the Giants won Super Bowl XLVI in 2012 over Tom Brady and the Patriots.

For Los Angeles, with two current titles, to equal or pass Detroit’s record would require the Rams or Chargers to win the Super Bowl in February, then the Kings or Mighty Ducks to win the next Stanley Cup.