Unofficial World Championships

The concept of an “unofficial” world championship refers to alternative, fan-created methods of recognizing a world champion outside official tournaments. These methods usually take the form of singular matches where the winner of each game is declared the champion with the title changing hands every time a new winner is found, like a boxing champion belt.

The first successful version of this kind of competition is the Unofficial Football World Championships (UFWC). Created by the journalist Paul Brown in 2003, the UFWC traces the lineage of international football (soccer) matches, dating back to the first game between nations in 1872.

Other versions of unofficial world cups have been created, such as the Unofficial Football Club Championship, which goes back to the first ever competitive club final in the history of football, and other similar concepts that were made for several distinct competitions.

Paul Brown’s original UFWC idea and amazing work has inspired me to apply the same concept to other sports. As such, with the help of the amazing archive that is sports-reference.com, I am currently developing Unofficial Championships for American football and basketball for professional and college teams.

Web Sports Archive is very likely not the only source that is tracking results from the beginning of the respective sports, but that doesn’t matter. As long as the information is out there, we have a new way of interacting with and enjoying the games that we love so much.

John Aarson, Web Sports Archive

Starting in the first documented collegiate American football match between Rutgers University and Princeton University back in 1869, the winner gets the virtual trophy of college football unofficial world champion any time they win a match. Rutgers beat Princeton 6-4 and the title was theirs to defend from then on. The following opponent facing Rutgers would have to beat them if they wanted to become the new champions (and they did… and it was Princeton… again).
Any time a match ends in a tie, the defending champion gets to keep the title.
Every win is counted as a new title in the champion rankings.

1860s

1870s

1880s

1890s