About this chart race
The Boston Americans won the first World Series in 1903 and, as the Red Sox, were still in front twenty-seven years later on five titles. The Philadelphia Athletics drew level in 1930, and the New York Yankees - who had won nothing at all before 1923 - joined them on five in 1936. In 1937 the Yankees went ahead outright, and they have never been caught since: eighty-eight years at the top, by far the longest unbroken lead in this race.
What the Yankees did next is why nobody has closed the gap. They won five World Series in a row from 1949 to 1953 and sixteen of the twenty-seven played between 1936 and 1962. Their twenty-seventh came in 2009, and they have not won one since - but it is still more than double the eleven of the St. Louis Cardinals in second place.
The great droughts are the other half of the story. The Chicago Cubs won in 1907 and 1908 and then waited 108 years for the next one in 2016. The Chicago White Sox went 88 years between 1917 and 2005, and the Boston Red Sox 86 years between 1918 and 2004.
Behind the Yankees the chase is close: the Cardinals on 11, then the Dodgers, the Athletics and the Red Sox all on 9, and the Giants on 8. Los Angeles won back-to-back in 2024 and 2025, the first repeat champion since the Yankees in 1999 and 2000. Five of the thirty franchises have never won a World Series at all - the Padres, Rays, Brewers, Rockies and Mariners.
Two years are missing on purpose. No World Series was played in 1904, when the National League champion New York Giants refused to meet the American League winners, or in 1994, when a players' strike ended the season early. Franchises are shown under their present-day names, with the name they carried at the time displayed as the years pass.
This animated ranking shows how cumulative world series titles changed across 25 series between 1903 and 2025. The bars re-order themselves as the years advance, so overtakes are visible as they happen rather than hidden inside a table. Use the list on the left to choose exactly who competes, drag the slider to jump to any year, or open the table view to read the underlying numbers.
As of 2025, New York Yankees leads with 27.
Included in this race
New York Yankees, St. Louis Cardinals, Los Angeles Dodgers, Boston Red Sox, Athletics, San Francisco Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates, Cincinnati Reds, Detroit Tigers, Atlanta Braves, Minnesota Twins, Chicago White Sox, Chicago Cubs, Baltimore Orioles, Toronto Blue Jays, Philadelphia Phillies, New York Mets, Miami Marlins, Kansas City Royals, Houston Astros, Cleveland Guardians, Washington Nationals, Texas Rangers, Los Angeles Angels, Arizona Diamondbacks.
Source
Data from Wikipedia - List of World Series champions. Every figure shown comes from this source — nothing is estimated or generated.
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