Championship ring

Several Super Bowl rings on display, with the Baltimore Ravens Super Bowl ring from 2000 visible in the left foreground

A championship ring or premiership ring is a ring presented to members of winning teams in North American professional sports leagues,[1] and college tournaments.

Championship rings are mostly confined to North American sports. Since only one championship trophy is awarded by the league to the winning team, championship rings are distributed as a memento for the players and team officials to keep for themselves to symbolize their victory. Winners' medals (and runners-up medals) are not awarded in North American professional sports, in contrast to Olympic sports and European club association football tournaments such as the Premier League and UEFA Champions League.[2] Championship rings are distributed by and paid for by the winning team (although some leagues may partially subsidize the cost), in contrast to medals which are awarded and paid for by the league or competition governing body.

Championship rings have long been part of North American sports lexicon. An individual's number of championship rings, rather than number of championship trophies, is often used by sportswriters as a tally of a their personal success, since it is more appropriate to write that it is the team/franchise/club and not the individual who wins the championship trophy (i.e. number of NBA championship rings rather than Larry O'Brien Trophies won by former NBA coach Phil Jackson).[3] In North American sports vernacular, a player's aim of wanting the "ring" is synonymous with winning the playoff league championship, and it has entered popular lexicon (retired basketball center Shaquille O'Neal was quoted as saying "My motto is very simple: Win a Ring for the King", former NHL goaltender Patrick Roy remarking "I can't hear what Jeremy says, because I've got my two Stanley Cup rings plugging my ears").[4]

The four best known (and expensive) championship rings are the ones from the "Big Four" major professional sports leagues in North America; the Major League Baseball's (MLB) World Series ring, the National Basketball Association's (NBA) championship ring, National Football League (NFL) Super Bowl ring, and the National Hockey League's (NHL) Stanley Cup ring. In North American sports, besides rings to commemorate winning the league championship game/series, rings are often presented to the championship game/series finalists (known as losers' rings, which are never worn),[5][6] and conference championship game/series winners.[7] There are also individual rings given to All-Star Game participants and inductees into a hall of fame.

  1. ^ Kartje, Ryan (September 27, 2011). "In sports, ring is the thing: Title jewel serves as status symbol, career validation". Out of the Park (OOTP) Baseball. Retrieved October 30, 2011.
  2. ^ "The basketball champions' rings with 640 diamonds". BBC. October 24, 2019.
  3. ^ "With 13 titles, Jackson is the lord of the rings". ESPN.com. June 10, 2011. Retrieved June 12, 2019.
  4. ^ "Stanley Cup rings". CNN. February 15, 2001. Archived from the original on May 1, 2001.
  5. ^ "Super Bowl Ring | Championship Ring | World Series Ring | Sports Ring".
  6. ^ "ESPN.com - Page2 - Super Bowl from A to Z". www.espn.com. Retrieved December 16, 2022.
  7. ^ "How about them. Cowboy rings". Archived from the original on October 28, 2019. Retrieved January 26, 2020.