Sports Franchises in Big Cities

One of the memorable points from reading this very perceptive expose of modern soccer was the observation that the three most populous cities in Europe have never produced a team that won the continental event. And this is in spite of the obvious fact that franchises in these cities would have some of the largest fan bases and access to quality personnel. The authors highlight a number of smaller cities in France, England and Germany that have won the championship more than once.

Reading a NYT article by Richard Sandomir leads to the understanding that a similar fate has met some of sports franchises in the US too. To my mind, it seems that the mere size and diversity of a city may not be sufficient for arranging a winning sports franchise. It is unclear to me whether this is a highly selected sample of poor performers or whether there is a reason why metropolises seem to struggle when it comes to creating winning teams. A data based review of this is necessary to settle this point because the Los Angeles Lakers have been quite successful as a sports franchise. Is there empirical proof that mid-size cities  really have better sports franchises?