Why are they called “World Champions”?

In sports, teams work hard all season to get to the promise land, to the final championship series of their respective sport and when they win it all, gladly call themselves champions. In the US, when teams win their leagues and are handed the coveted trophy, they are deemed “World Champions”. Except there is one problem, they are not. How can they receive the title of best in the world, when they only play teams from other states in the US? Why are the New York Giants of the NFL (NATIONAL football league) called World Champions? They beat a team from Massachusetts, which is ironically from a region called New England, but not the European England. All the teams they beat to get to the Super Bowl were from one of the 50 states. Plus, outside the US, the real “football” players around the world or “Soccer” players to us, actually play other countries to win it all. In Canada, for example, there is the Canadian Football League, which has teams from all parts of Canada play, each other. When a team wins the Grey Cup, they are called CFL Champions. The champion defeated other teams within its countries borders and they got an award
Why are the Boston Celtics World Champions? It is a fact that they did beat a team from a city 3000 miles away, but Los Angeles is part of the United States. There is an organization called, FIBA. The abbreviation 'FIBA' derives from the French 'Fédération Internationale de Basketball Amateur'. A ton of countries are represented in FIBA, even the USA; and the winner could definitely declare itself the champion of the World. Boston did not get a chance to play Bosnia or Germany in the NBA finals, only LA. Yet we as American sports fans still call them the “World Champion Boston Celtics”.
What made the Boston Red Sox the best baseball team in the World? Did we miss the telecast of them defeating the Yomiuri Giants from Japan? They didn’t even play the one team outside the US in the playoffs, the Toronto Blue Jays, to have a slight argument for being World Champions. Also, just having teams from Canada, doesn’t mean it can represent the rest of the World in competitive sports. The name, the World Series, is even more confusing. It sounds like there will be a series of games where teams from all around the World will compete for a trophy, symbolizing their status as best on Earth. What it really sounds like, is that America is the embodiment of all things baseball and no other country would have a chance to challenge that, so Americans can then assume that as long as one team from the US beats another, they are the best in the world by default. There are plenty of international players in Major League Baseball. Countries like Cuba, Korea, Dominican Republic, Taiwan and many others are represented in baseball every game, even as recent as this years World Series. SO there is an international aspect to the Series, but no country alone wins anything, one of the States here in the US gets that honor.
Securing the title of “World Champion” in a sport played only by American teams is somewhat of a debatable topic. Some might say that because the sports played here are only played here, the team that wins is the best in the world. Others might say that it is unfair to deem yourself the worlds best until you beat an international team within the sport. Still, others don’t care either way. Imagine this, the Hamburg Sea Devils of NFL Europa win the league championship series or what is called the “World Bowl” and then parade around the streets of Germany as “World Champions”. They succeeded in defeating the Amsterdam Admirals and then the Frankfurt Galaxy en route to the trophy. Are they the real “World Champions”? Are the New York Giants the real champions? Should they play each other in a real world bowl to see who really is the best? We’ll never know because the NFL closed the book on its European league last year due to significant monetary losses. They replaced it with regular season games between NFL teams over seas in Europe. Maybe that would be the answer? Have American teams play over seas in other countries, so that when it comes time to crown a world champion, there will be no argument as to why or how. Major League Baseball did it this past year, with the Oakland A’s and the Boston Red Sox playing in Japan. The National Basketball Association did it as well, but not during the regular season, it was two pre season games where the Heat, Nets, Hornets and Wizards competed in four European cities. So the answer to why they are called world champions lies within the extension of American sports into other countries. By representing itself and presenting its product over seas, American sports as a whole is making a strong case for being able to say, “Our teams are the best in the world”. It also helps that the athletes who play these American sports are enormous celebrities worldwide and are more recognizable then most international politicians. The fan base has stretched so far for these athletes that other countries are willing to double some of their salaries to play overseas permanently. If that were to happen, organizations might follow their players and we all might see a change of scenery for sports, opening the door to a fully international field of play and creating a real World Champion.