Is Boston Really Title Town?

Nobody likes rolling out new nicknames for Beantown—think Greentown—more than Mayor Tom Menino. So we took it as final when he dubbed the Hub, “Title Town” at a press conference announcing the details of the Celtics’ victory parade.

“We are a city of champions,” Menino said with a broad grin. “We are Title Town.”

Little did we know, ESPN had other ideas. Completely disregarding Hizzoner’s authority, they’ve decided to let their viewers decide which city is America’s official “Title Town.”

The answer is Boston. Obviously. Even ESPN’s Steve Levy agrees.

“How could it not be Boston?” He asked Boston Daily.

The network—finally freed of the burden of deciding who is most Now—selected 12 of its SportsCenter anchors and 21 other media members to pare down a list of nominees to 23 finalists. Naturally, Boston made the cut. Once all the finalists have been revealed, ESPN viewers will get to vote on which city or town they believe deserves the coveted status of TitleTown (notice how when ESPN writes TitleTown, there’s no space between the words—hooray for branding!).

Levy was in town earlier this week to film a segment explaining the reasoning behind Boston’s nomination, just in case the rest of the world hadn’t noticed that our teams are doing pretty well lately.

“I had to ask Jonathan Papelbon the most obvious question in the world,” Levy said, “I asked him to explain why Boston should be called TitleTown.”

But what about Boston’s fourth team? The Bruins were the only local team to peter out in the first round of the playoffs this year. Even the Revolution reached the MLS finals.

“It’s a tough environment to not be a contender,” said Levy, who attended Game 7 in Montreal on his own time. “But the playoffs gave Boston the most exciting hockey in five or six years. They made a strong statement.”

You can make a strong statement by voting for Boston in the TitleTown contest starting on July 23. That is, if Menino doesn’t storm ESPN headquarters, take over the network, and decide the matter himself first.