The Best (Non-Divisional) Rivalries in Sports

The Iron Bowl. The Oaken Bucket. The Victory Bell. The Game. The other the Game.

It’s rivalry season…and I’m over the moon about it! Nothing better on the sports calendar than when post-game jersey swaps give way to some sincere disdain between my team and your team.  

Most of ‘em, of course, are based on sharing the same neighborhood – Capulets v Montagues, Hatfields v McCoys, Yankees v Red Sox, Flames v Oilers, Seahawks v Niners, Duke v UNC, Simpsons v Flanders – because whether it’s love or hate, proximity engenders strong feelings. 

Others, though, are based on more than mere contemptuous familiarity. Sometimes, it’s about two teams peaking in different time zones but in the same window of time, leading to king-of-the-hill battles that – at their best – live on past just one generation. Here are my twelve favorites in that vein… 

Russia’s been diminished as an Olympic powerhouse over the last 30+ years, but at the height of the Cold War, the 1980 Miracle on Ice and the controversial (read: bogus) finish to the ’72 men’s basketball were as big as anything happening in sports…in no small part because every meeting, no matter sport, felt like a fight for “our” way of life versus theirs.

The collective elevation of the Sunshine State’s three powerhouse programs ranks among the biggest changes in any major North American sport over the last five decades. Since the U first broke through in ’83, the trio of Florida schools have won eleven national titles…and while their head-to-heads have provided tons of iconic moments (“Wide right!”), the toughest battles have gone down recruiting the state’s blue-chip talent.

The rivalry will be renewed this December in Pittsburgh where it began back in 1972 when Franco Harris made that one improbable catch. It’s died down a bit this millennium (although if not for the Tuck Rule, they’d have met for the AFC title back in 2001), but this rivalry still stands out because John Madden & Chuck Noll’s high-end teams met each other five years in a row starting with the Immaculate Reception and ending in ’76 with Oakland finally getting past Pittsburgh on their way to their first Super Bowl win. 

As you may have heard, LeBron has taken his talents to multiple NBA towns, but whether he was in Believeland or South Beach, he & his Eastern Conference champion supporting cast were a constant in the Finals for a remarkable eight-straight seasons from ’11-to-’18 (plus an earlier visit back in ’07).

Legendary coaches, Heisman-level talent, and century’s worth of national titles establish the perennial stakes between two of college football’s all-time best programs…but what stands out is the fact each has played spoiler to their rival’s otherwise realistic national title hopes (at least) a half-dozen times a piece. 

The Campbell (nay Western) Conference’s two best teams faced off six times over a dozen years, with the winner going on to win the Stanley Cup in four of those seasons. Of course, this rivalry’s noteworthy because of all the fights, cheap shots and blood frozen into the ice at least as much as it is for the Hall of Fame talent on both sides.

As Ross Tucker once pointed out to me, it’s fun to consider how many more Lombardi’s Brady would have if Ole Miss BMOC Archie Manning hadn’t met his wife in Oxford, MS. Meantime, here in reality, the semi-annual primetime showdowns between Brady & the elder Manning brother were always must-watch, never more so than when their teams met three times in four AFC postseasons. Of course, it was Eli who vanquished the TB12 method in both Super Bowl meetings.   

San Francisco’s upset in Big D last January was the seventh postseason head-to-head between the two NFC powerhouses. The ’81 title game (aka ‘The Catch’ game) is on the shortlist of best NFL games ever…and by the end of their three-straight early-‘90s championship meetings, we knew the survivor’s reward was gonna be the Lombardi Trophy.

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Said it before, will say it again now: If Bob Lilly tackles Bart Starr on the 4th & goal sneak at the end of the Ice Bowl in ’67, NFL champs would now be hoisting the Landry Trophy. The rivalry’s been able to stay heated over the generations, with eight total postseason meetings stretching from Lynn Dickey vs Danny White to Brett Favre vs Troy Aikman to Aaron Rodgers vs Dak Prescott.

Not many visuals are better than the cadets in gray & midshipmen in black loading into their respective sections to root like hell for the final regular game on the calendar (preferably with a light snow completing the scene). Participants and fans of almost any rivalry claim it’s the only the game that really matters – as in: “We can lose all the others so long as we win this one” – but as far as I can tell, the only head-to-head where that’s actually the case is between these two service academies. 

At a time when pro football was still just rounding the corner on its way to passing baseball and every other sport in terms of popularity, the ‘70s Steelers and Cowboys were so significant that pro football fans were required to root for their local team and one of the league’s two true heavyweights. (To this day, when either Dallas or Pittsburgh plays a road game, the stadium seems half-filled with their supporters. Most of those people didn’t jet in – the roots just sank that deep for fans on either side.) Super Bowl XXX updated things to three total Super Bowls between the two foes, shiny stars versus steely brawn.

Eleven World Series between the former borough-based rivals-turned-bookends on either side of Baseball America, both serving as yardsticks for the rest of their respective leagues. I don’t think I need to sell this one real hard…so I won’t.

Northeast v SoCal. They’ve played each other in the Finals a dozen times in total. Combined they’ve won 33 of 77 NBA titles in man’s recorded history. No major sport has depended more on two competing, enduring brands more than the way the NBA has had its collective boats hoisted by the rising tide of the Celts & Lakers, of course highlighted by Bird v Magic through the ‘80s.  

Others receiving votes:

(8-4-1 last week, 87-63-2 on the season)

USC -3

Kansas St +2.5

UNC +7.5

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Vikings -3

TEN/PHI u44.5

Steelers -1

PIT/ATL o43

Eagles -5

Bengals +2.5

Raiders +2

MIA/SF o46.5

Enjoy the games, and remember: I hope your team wins…unless they’re playing my team.