The term “world champion” has no value, that’s the problem wit your point. It’s just a couple of words thrown together periodically by various sports/ competition groups to label this year’s winner of something.
the NFL doesn’t want it EITHER of the ways you’re discussing. They’ve got their league, they’ve got their playoffs, they’ve got their winner, they call their winner the World Champions because it’s their winner and they can call them whatever the hell they want.
Sorry but I’m not confusing anything. Nowhere did I ever say anything that even vaguely hints that I think “world champ” is the same as best in the world. That would be YOUR confusion actually when you were complaining that the Phillies couldn’t possibly be World Champions because the US baseball team lost in the WBC. Out here in reality where people understand sports we know that the World Champion (or league champion, or whatever the label is) isn’t even necessarily the best team in that league that year. My Steelers are the World Champions of the NFL but they weren’t the best team in the league for the 2008 season, that would go probably to the Tennessee Titans, my the Steelers won the playoff games necessary to get to the Super Bowl and won the Super Bowl and therefore ARE the WORLD CHAMPIONS whether you or the Titans like it or not.
Sorry but the sailing competition is just as silly to label a world champion as anybody else. Sailing competitions take a really long time, and often run in a challenge cup format which lets the previous winner set the rules, which tends to make things kind of stupid.
There’s no scam or scheme. The problem here is that you put way more weight into the words “world champion” than they deserve. It’s a silly thing to get upset over. The NFL, and the MLB, and your sailing group, and FIFA, and anybody else who feels like it, get to declare get to declare a World Champion in their league for all the same reason:
it’s their league
it’s their champion
they get to call them whatever they want
And if you don’t like it that’s not their problem.
Well that's where we'll have to agree to differ.
In my world, a World Champion is champion of a world wide sport that has defeated all comers on a world stage at a World Championship.
To you, as you say, it's a meaningless title that anyone can use as they see fit. And frankly that's a shame.
And what is the point of a title if it has no meaning?
As for your comments about sailing championships, your knowledge is obviously extremely limited. The only competition where the previous winner sets the format for the next competition is the America's Cup, which isn't a world championship anyway, it's a challenge cup.