A Deep Dive on a Vexing Question: Should It Be “World Champions” or “World’s Champions”?

We delve into the intriguing history of how sports champions have defined themselves.

I recently published a short post on the Uni Watch Blog about some gorgeous 1952 New York Football Giants stationery. A reader/commenter who calls himself Apples to Apples noticed that the letterhead described the Giants as “World’s Champions” (as shown above), and asked, “Paul, is ‘World’ or ‘World’s’ more common in sports parlance, and which one is more grammatically correct?” That’s an intriguing query with surprisingly deep historical parameters, so I’ve decided to address it here today.

First, let's acknowledge that there's a certain hubris about American sports culture’s habit of claiming global status for its annual champions. This claim might be plausible for, say, an Olympic gold medalist, or the winner of an international tournament like soccer’s World Cup, or even a professional boxing champion, but it’s always been a bit hyperbolic when referring to American professional sports.

That hyperbole probably started with the name of baseball’s season-ending championship round — the World Series. And that’s probably where the “World” vs. “World’s” confusion started as well, because the World Series — or at least an early version of it — was originally called the World’s Series! As explained by Wikipedia:

From 1884 to 1890, the National League and the American Association faced each other in a series of games at the end of the season to determine an overall champion. These series were disorganized in comparison to the modern World Series, with the terms arranged through negotiation of the owners of the championship teams beforehand. The number of games played ranged from as few as three in 1884 (Providence defeated New York three games to zero), to a high of fifteen in 1887 (Detroit beat St. Louis ten games to five). Both the 1885 and 1890 Series ended in ties, each team having won three games with one tie game.

The series was promoted and referred to as “The Championship of the United States,” the “World’s Championship Series.” or “World’s Series” for short.

Major League Baseball’s current position is that these early World’s Series were not the same as the official World Series, which MLB deems to have begun in 1903. Nevertheless, the early use of “World’s” — the possessive, rather than the singular noun — seems to have carried over into common baseball parlance, at least for a while. Research by Uni Watch proofreader Jerry Wolper, for example, indicates that newspapers in Pittsburgh were still referring to the “World’s Series” as late as 1926.

“World’s” also held sway in other contexts. In 1906, for example, the New York (baseball) Giants decided to let everyone know that they were the defending World(’s) Series champs by trumpeting that fact on their uniforms.

Outfielder Mike Donlin of the 1906 New York Giants, who weren’t shy about reminding folks that they’d won the 1905 World Series. Note how the “R” is split across the jersey placket.

Here's a few seconds’ worth of rare footage showing Giants pitcher Christy Mathewson warming up while wearing that uniform: