Now that the matchup is set, what if I told you that there may be more at stake on Super Bowl Sunday than a simple football game? Could your immediate financial future hang in the balance depending upon the outcome of The Big Game? That’s what sportswriter Leonard Koppett hypothesized with his fabled Super Bowl Indicator, the “prediction model” of sorts he uncovered in satirical fashion in 1978.

Much has been written on this prediction model since Koppett’s original musings, especially so as the Super Bowl Stock Theory carried a hit rate of better than 95% as recently as the late ’90s. Most notably, Jason Zweig of the Wall Street Journal kept tabs on the trend and its creator, providing further context, clarity and hilarity over the ensuing years. Yet, as I scoured the internet for the all-time results of the notorious Super Bowl Indicator, I failed to locate this vital piece of investing data. As a public service, I’ve compiled the data myself and am here to present the all-time results of the Super Bowl Indicator, in all their beautiful glory and infamy.

What is The Super Bowl Indicator?

The Super Bowl Indicator theorizes that if a team from the original National Football League as of 1966 (the first season with an AFL-NFL Championship) wins the Super Bowl, the stock market will finish up for the calendar year. Koppett’s original intent was to highlight the difference between causation and correlation, but for investors in the ’80s and ’90s, he accidentally uncovered one of the most accurate market predictors in investing history that correctly predicted market results for 23 consecutive years (and 30 of the first 31 Super Bowls).

For the football agnostic, the 15 original NFL teams prior to the merger, which serve as indicators of a positive year in the market, are the Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore (now Indianapolis) Colts, Chicago Bears, Cleveland Browns (now Baltimore Ravens, despite the NFL’s revisionist history), Dallas Cowboys, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, L.A. Rams, Minnesota Vikings, New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers, San Francisco 49ers, St. Louis (now Arizona) Cardinals and the Washington Redskins (now Commanders). Of the 15, the Colts, Browns/Ravens and Steelers moved to the AFC post-merger, making it possible for two “original NFL” franchises to square off in the Super Bowl–all but guaranteeing an up year for the market.

If we apply the original thesis of the Super Bowl Indicator, or SBI, to this year’s matchup, we can deduce that if the San Francisco 49ers win the Super Bowl, the market will finish up. If the Kansas City Chiefs win the Super Bowl, the market will finish down. But if recent results are to be believed, the opposite may now be true. That, in itself, is a sure sign of the death of the Super Bowl Indicator.

The All-Time Super Bowl Indicator Results

Let’s take a look at the results of the Super Bowl Indicator (or SBI) on the NYSE Composite Index (Koppett’s original benchmark), the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500.

The all-time tally: The Super Bowl Indicator has correctly predicted the results of the stock market in at least one of the three indices an impressive 70.2% of the time (40 out of 57 Super Bowls).

Here’s the breakdown by index:

NYSE Composite Index: 35-22 (61.4%)

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 37-20 (64.9%)

S&P 500: 34-23 (59.6%)

Despite a strong overall performance, recent results have damaged what had been a nearly pristine record heading into the turn of the century. In fact, the last eight Super Bowls have all gone directly against the Super Bowl Indicator. As you can see, though, the early returns of the SBI were the stuff of legend.

History of the Super Bowl Indicator

When Koppett first uncovered this trend in 1978, it seemed beyond coincidence that the Super Bowl result could have predicted the stock market results in each of the first 11 Super Bowls. Koppett’s original index, the NYSE Composite, remained perfect until 1984 after a successful run of 17 years. As he told Zweig in a 2001 interview: “I meant the whole thing as a satire on the fallibility of human statistical reasoning.” He added, “It’s too stupid to believe.”

When the NYSE Composite went rogue in 1984–a Raiders win over the Rams should have resulted in a down year–Koppett pivoted. As he later wrote to Zweig, “I did what any good statistician does: I broadened my statistical base until I got the numbers I wanted.” Despite the 1984 hiccup, investors could still rest assured that at least one of the NYSE, Dow or S&P would return results that corresponded to the Super Bowl.

So for the first 23 Super Bowls, at least one of the three indices did in fact finish up or down in accordance with the Super Bowl Indicator’s revised prediction, holding form for an astonishing 12 years after Koppett unearthed the original pattern. Finally, in 1990, all three indices finished in the red despite a 49ers victory over the Broncos in Super Bowl 24, which should have resulted in a positive year. But by 1998, after 31 Super Bowls, that remained the SBI’s only blemish. Satire or not, Koppett’s Super Bowl Indicator boasted a record of 30-1, a 96.8% accurate measure in stock picking success over a solid sample size of 31 years.

Introducing The New Super Bowl Indicator

Naturally, and to Koppett’s dismay, his facetious factoid evolved into a legitimate financial talking point, garnering national attention as the Indicator remained nearly infallible. But like much of the hype of the Dot Com Era, the SBI came crashing down with four consecutive incorrect results from 1998-2001, and it has never recovered since in the eyes of the public. As you may have noticed, the effective end of the SBI coincides with the end of the NFC’s run of dominance, in which the conference won 13 consecutive Super Bowls–all by original NFL franchises.

Perhaps the new Super Bowl Indicator is the reverse of Koppett’s: Dating back to when the AFC ended its 13-year Super Bowl drought in 1998, 19 of the last 26 years (73.1%) have seen the market go up when won by a “non-original” franchise, and down when won by a team original to the NFL in 1966.

Or how about this for a spurious correlation? The Revenge of the Romans Super Bowl Stock Theory goes that since the NFL briefly deviated from Roman numerals in Super Bowl 50 in 2016, the market will go down if the Super Bowl is won by an original NFL franchise, and up if won by a non-original franchise. The Romans are 8-0 in predicting the market! As such, go Chiefs!

The end of the Super Bowl Indicator

In any case, the Super Bowl Indicator as we once knew it is no more. The NFL, now with 32 teams, has convoluted matters for the SBI’s sake as a result of expansion and relocation. As an example, the Cleveland Browns relocated in 1996 and became the Baltimore Ravens, only for a new iteration of the Cleveland Browns to re-enter the league in 1999. For bookkeeping purposes, the NFL retroactively granted the Browns all of their previous history and now considers the Ravens as an expansion team (the SBI is 1-1 in Ravens’ Super Bowls).

As for true expansion teams, the Super Bowl Expansion Indicator has a 100% success rate: If the Super Bowl is won by a team that did not exist prior to the NFL in 1966, the market will finish up for the year. In fact, the S&P has experienced double digit returns in all four such instances. This applies to victories by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2003, 2021), New Orleans Saints (2010) and Seattle Seahawks (2014), while again excluding the fake-expansion Ravens. The “expansion” Saints barely missed out on being considered an original NFL team for Koppett’s sake, entering the league in 1967–the year after the first Super Bowl.

Conclusions drawn from the Super Bowl Indicator Results

An easy explainer for the success of the Super Bowl Indicator to begin with is probably as simple as the fact that the market goes up in a given year more often than not, and the old NFL boasted more established and talented teams, particularly in the early days of the merger. It makes sense that the two more likely results would occur in tandem with great frequency. The stars had to align for the down years to take place when they did, but only seven of the first 31 Super Bowls were won by a non-NFL original. During that stretch, all three indices finished the year in the negative only six times.

In recent years, the original Indicator has proven no better than a coin flip, so much a spurious correlation that it’s impossible to pick a side when your only rooting interest is future market performance. Ultimately, the only real conclusion to be drawn based on the above data is simple: the Super Bowl and stock market alike are no places for Bears.

A Look At The All-Time Super Bowl Coin Toss Results