In this Super Bowl season, investors should hope for the San Francisco 49ers of the NFC to win the big game. The quirky economic indicator goes like this: should the team from the old AFL, now the league's AFC, win the Super Bowl, the stock market will go down in the coming year. Should a team from the old NFL (now the NFC) win the game, the stock market will see a rise. According to Investopedia, the Super Bowl indicator has about an 80% accuracy rate, but economists hardly believe significantly in any correlation. An anomaly for consideration: in 2008, the New York Giants upset the previously undefeated New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. The Giants are in the NFC, but the stock market followed with its worst crash since the Great Depression.
This year's game is between the Baltimore Ravens and the 49ers, pitting brother against brother as head coaches of the two teams. If 80% accuracy is legitimate enough for economists to pay attention to, the 49ers will have some fans on Wall Street.
Advertisements during the Super Bowl are the most coveted advertisement time slots on television at any point during the year, as over a hundred million people are expected to tune into the game. Selling the advertisements can itself be an economic indicator. In recent years, companies have scaled back the advertisements as the recession affected all phases of production, and some firms saw approximately $3 to 4 million per 30 second time slot as too steep of a price. For the 2011 and 2012 Super Bowls, however, hosting television networks saw major companies coming back, more willing to pay big money for ads as the economy climbs back to strength. CBS is predicting even stronger interest in advertisements in 2013.
The Super Bowl isn't unemployment or retail sales as an economic indicator, but it is an unofficial American holiday. Super Bowl Sunday is a huge single day for the economy and particular industries, like pizza delivery and alcohol. As far as the stock market goes, money-makers will be pulling for the NFC every time.
-Hamlet Fort
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