Philadelphia: The New Sports Hype Town?

It’s only the beginning of April, and 2018 has already been a dizzying and exhilarating year in Philadelphia sports. First the Philadelphia Eagles swept in from behind and ran away with the Superbowl, which everyone and their mother was betting on belonging to the New England Patriots. Then, Monday night, the Villanova Wildcats locked down the NCAA college basketball championship, putting the City of Brotherly Love at two out of three on the nation’s biggest sports titles (with the third being a college football win).

It’s a great time to be a Philadelphia sports fan.

This is especially satisfying, given the fact that until last year, Philadelphia teams have consistently underperformed. No trophies to be found. Until 2008, when the Phillies took the World Series, there was seriously TWENTY-FIVE YEARS where no Philly sports team won a championship. According to the Washington Post, which covered Philly’s famine-to-feast championship glut: “The Flyers haven’t won a Stanley Cup since 1975. Before taking down New England in February, the Eagles hadn’t won an NFL title since 1960, seven years before the fancy Super Bowl concept came to fruition. It has been 35 years since the Fo’ Fo’ Fo’ Sixers ruled the NBA. Before the Eagles’ Super Bowl LII triumph, the stat-driven site FiveThirtyEight.com wrote that, from 1984 to 2017, “No other city in pro sports has underachieved more on the championship front, based on the number of actual titles won and the number we’d expect.””

Nowadays, however, things are looking pretty sunny in Philadelphia. The Wildcats have actually now won 2/3 of the last three years’ NCAA championships, and are poised to have another amazing season next year, even as many of their current seniors head off to the NBA. The 76ers are off to the playoffs. And then there’s the Flyers, who are just about ready to burst into the postseason as well.

For Philadelphia, which is known primarily for the cantankerousness of its sports fans, this is a bright new era of optimism and excitement.