The Premier League’s top team, founded in 1894, began the season as relegation, not title contenders. In fact, they were at the bottom of the league table back around Christmas 2014 — one year later, they found themselves at the opposite end and haven’t looked back. It’s literally been like a movie. Their season has been a true feat of history. In over 100 years of play, they’ve never won the English soccer top flight (the modern Premier League). They’ve never qualified for the Champions League. Their best Premier League finish was as the 1928-29 season’s runners-up. In a competition bankrolled by billions of dollars in oligarch and financier wealth, little Leicester City, backed by a 330,000-person population, is on the verge of overcoming 5000/1 odds to win the Premier League title.
Not being the betting sort, odds in sports in most cases mean little to me. There are times, though, when betting odds can tell a story about the occasionally transcendent nature of a feel-good story…and the tale of Leicester City’s (LCFC) journey from last to first is a feel-good story for the ages. Think of every underdog that’s fought their way to success- the 1969 New York Mets and New York Jets are a good place to begin but even their odds to win a championship where in the neighborhood of 100-1. The odds of the Foxes winning…well, anything this year started at 5000-1. You’d have a better shot at opening your front door to find Mila Kunis wearing nothing a smile and a pair of knee pads.
If you haven’t followed England’s Barclays Premier League (BPL) this season, you’re missing on what might just be the most amazing and unbelievable story in sports history. OK, so that sounds a bit overly dramatic, but Leicester City is on the verge of winning their first championship…and a more unlikely title run would be difficult to imagine.
LCFC has throughout its long history lived among English soccer’s poor relations. Anonymously located in the East Midlands- England’s answer to North Dakota- they’ve existed without notice in and around England’s lower leagues. Last year they found themselves in danger of being relegated from the BPL to the League Championship, the Football Association’s (FA) second of five tiers. Never having possessed anything approaching the financial resources of clubs like Chelsea, Tottenham, or Manchester United, the Foxes have scraped by as best they could. Even this season, LCFC’s payroll is 1/8 that of Manchester City, BPL champions in 2012 and 2014.
LCFC was sitting at the bottom of the table (20th out of 20 clubs) around Christmas, 2014. It took a hot streak near the end of last season for the Foxes to avoid relegation. This season, the club that just barely hung on last year is on the verge of handily winning the whole damn thing. LCFC began the 2015-16 campaign as an afterthought, a 5000-1 shot to do what they’re (barring an act of God or the Queen) about to do.
5000-1 are the longest odds any team in any sport anywhere has faced. If you’d bet on the Foxes before the season, you’d be on the cusp of making a ton of money. Of course, no sane person would have bet on a bottom of the table side with no prospects and lacking the financial resources to do anything but serve as chum for England’s soccer royalty. How long are those odds? To compare, here’s a list of things more likely to happen than LCFC winning the BPL championship:
Odds of dating a millionaire: 215 to 1
Odds of fatally slipping in the shower: 2,232 to 1
Getting on a plane with a drunken pilot: 117 to 1
Odds of catching a ball at an MLB game: 570 to 1
Odds of getting injured by a chainsaw: 4,464 to 1
Odds of having an extra finger or toe (Polydactyly): 500 to 1
Odds of hitting a hole-in-one: 3,632 to 1
Odds of dying as a pedestrian: 672 to 1
Odds of writing a best-selling novel: 220 to 1
Odds of having a child genius: 261 to 1
With three games remaining in the BPL season, LCFC is seven points up on second place Tottenham. The odds of the 5000-1 longshot to win the championship are very, very good indeed. Even if you’re not a sports fan, it’s hard not to look at LCFC’s march to the championship as just about the ultimate feel-good story. The best thing about this story is that the Foxes have already guaranteed themselves a place in next year’s UEFA Champions League competition, which means they’ll be getting a cut of the ridiculous sum of money disbursed to teams who participate. England’s poor relations will finally have money, which will allow them to upgrade their roster…and perhaps prove that 2015-16 wasn’t a glorious, wonderful, feel-good fluke.
David drops Goliath. Good triumphs over overwhelming Evil. Palm trees thrive in Fargo. The sun rises in the West. Christmas is the hottest day of the year. ALL of these things are far more reasonable outcomes than LCFC’s prospects of a BPL championship back in August…and yet it’s about to happen.
