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When Tottenham Hotspur failed to defeat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, it became the biggest sports story in the world, and a sentence with very few words you likely understand. What it really means is that Leicester City FC has clinched first place in the English Premier League this season, finishing off the most unlikely feat in the history of recorded sports.
See, Leicester City was only promoted to England’s top league two seasons ago, which is the equivalent of a promoting a AAA minor league baseball team to compete in the Major Leagues. Except that in the last 20 years, 10 different Major League teams have won the title. In those same 20 years of EPL, a whopping FOUR different teams been crowned league champions. Women’s college basketball is crazy top-heavy, but trying to win in the EPL is veritably impossible for the little guys.
Case in point, Leicester City, who finished 14th out of 20 last year, were 5,000 to 1 odds to become the Premier League champs.
Let’s put that into some perspective, shall we:
- Buster Douglas was a 42 to 1 longshot to beat Mike Tyson in 1990.
- The biggest longshot to win the Kentucky Derby was Donerail, in 1913. Donerail paid out 91 to 1 and is one of only three horses in Derby history to win with 50 to 1 odds or worse.
- Know how utterly crappy the Philadelphia sports teams are these days? The Phillies opened the season at 200 to 1 to win the World Series, and the 76ers were 350 to 1 to win the NBA title.
- When the Boston Red Sox were down three games to none in the 2004 ALCS against the Yankees, after not having won a World Series in 86 years, and no baseball team had ever come back from a 3-0 deficit, they were 120 to 1 odds to win the World Series.
- Even the 1980 US Olympic Men’s Hockey team, coming in as the seventh best team in the tournament, would have been less than 1,000 to 1 odds to win the gold medal (though the 17 to 1 number they arrive at seems lowballed).
All of these things seemed unfathomable at the time. And yet, none of them comes close to what Leicester City did this year. And so, we wanted to put it in more perspective. Here are some things that seem impossible and either happened recently, OR would be less than 5,000 to 1 odds:
- Qatar chosen to host the World Cup (happened)
- Kobe Bryant scoring 60 points in his last game (happened)
- Pablo Sandoval snapping his belt during a swing (happened)
- Sting performing at halftime of the 2016 NBA All-Star game (happened)
- Roger Goodell apologizing for making too big a deal of inflated footballs (1,000 to 1)
- Hillary Clinton choosing Donald Trump as her VP (800 to 1)
- Bartolo Colon winning the NL batting title (1,500 to 1)
- OJ Simpson finding the real killer (2,500 to 1)
- Curt Schilling voting for Bernie Sanders from a women’s bathroom (4,000 to 1)
- Serena Williams ripping off her mask and revealing that she is actually Venus Williams, while playing against Venus Williams (maybe greater than 5,000 to 1)
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