On Sunday, hundreds of millions of people will tune in to potentially witness the coronation of a dynasty. As the Kansas City Chiefs strive to become the first NFL team to win three Super Bowls in a row, their status among sports’ all-time greatest teams across multiple seasons is under constant debate.
A dynastic reign is among the most revered feats in sports, a way to guarantee a legacy that lives long beyond the players and staff involved. A young baseball fan’s education isn’t complete without studying Babe Ruth’s New York Yankees in the 1920s, or the late-1990s vintage led by Derek Jeter. Every great NBA team is measured against Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls of the 1990s and the modern era is still largely reactive to the 2010s Golden State Warriors. The Houston Comets didn’t allow any other team to win the WNBA until the league’s fifth season.
The U.S. women’s national soccer team have certainly come close to dynasty status. No other nation can match their four Women’s World Cup titles and the United States has also won five Olympic gold medals since women’s soccer joined the list of events in 1996. But the U.S. has never won three consecutive major tournaments, with three titles often requisite to cement a team as being dynastic.
This isn’t just an American fascination with sustained greatness, either. The history of soccer is littered with similar feats, from Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United to the dominance achieved by Spain and Argentina’s men teams. Brazil won three of four World Cups from 1958 to 1970 thanks to Pele’s generational gifts.
Europe is currently grappling with recurring champions in each of the big five leagues except for Italy. Paris Saint-Germain has won six of the last seven Ligue 1 titles. Manchester City has enjoyed an identical win rate in the Premier League. In 2023-24, Bayer Leverkusen pulled off a shock by taking the Bundesliga title away from Bayern Munich for the first time since the 2011-12 season, while Barcelona and Real Madrid have won 18 of the past 20 La Liga campaigns, with Atletico Madrid claiming the other two.
For a league that habitually must balance its influences from American sporting customs and global soccer, MLS is a curious outlier. It, as with the similarly structured NWSL, now seems immune to fostering such dynasties. This is seen as a desired outcome given the league’s curated commitment to sustaining…