Roger Staubach knows a thing or two about winning Super Bowls. The football icon led the Dallas Cowboys to two Super Bowl victories in 1972 and 1978. But the NFL Hall of Fame quarterback also knows a thing or two about commercial real estate. Staubach is the Americas executive chairman at Jones Lang LaSalle, a global financial and professional services firm specializing in real estate.
As the big game nears, Staubach (who also happens to be the man presenting the Lombardi Trophy to this year’s winning team) has made an interesting prediction: the winner of Super Bowl XLV will actually be from the city with the highest commercial real estate vacancies.
It sounds strange, but it’s actually true, according to Jones Lang LaSalle. NFL teams based in cities with the highest percentage of empty office space have won the Super Bowl nearly two-thirds of the time since 2000.
So based on this hypothesis the Green Bay Packers are set to prevail over the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday. Pittsburgh touts a 12.1% office vacancy rate (one of the lowest in the country) while Green Bay’s vacancy rate is about 18.9%.
“As a student of both football and commercial real estate, I can tell you that this vacancy rate hypothesis is absolutely the real deal,” Staubach said in a press release. “When it comes to picking a winner, you can throw everything else out the window.”
So what’s the correlation? Not really sure. Jones Lang LaSalle doesn’t really explain why football success and real estate depression in a particular city goes hand in hand. Maybe it’s just an observation. When your world revolves around real estate and you happen to be a huge football fan you can manage to find a connection to the two. Just like if you were really into weather. Maybe the winner’s city has the most average rainfall?
More than likely Staubach’s prediction has more to do with drumming up business and his own personal disdain for the Steelers (the Cowboys lost two Super Bowls to Pittsburgh in the 1970s).
Staubach and his son, Jeff (who is a senior vice president at Jones Lang LaSalle) have been busy blogging away about Super Bowl XLV (and how it sometimes relates to commercial real estate) on Jones Lang LaSalle’s website. Their “Countdown to the Super Bowl: The Economic and Social Impacts for North Texas” actually launched last year. Staubach played an integral role in bringing the Super Bowl to the Dallas area. He chaired the North Texas bid committee.
You see, Staubach is a smart guy. He’s in the business of selling big office buildings to big companies. And the Super Bowl is an opportunity to show off a community to corporate decision makers. According to the NFL, 65% of Super Bowl attendees are corporate executives. Staubach is courting those executives, who may be thinking about opening up offices or relocating their headquarters to the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex.
So does real estate really have anything to do with who will win the Super Bowl? Probably not. But making far-fetched predictions about this year’s champion is just fun, and it’s a way to get you and your company’s name in the news.
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Laura! I’ll admit I was a little worried you were going to assert something conclusive from Roger’s analysis, thanks for keeping us grounded with “More than likely Staubach’s prediction has more to do with drumming up business and his own personal disdain for the Steelers.”
The Super Bowl hype is fun, I’ve actually been actively searching for someone who finds some credence in an analysis like that. The Stat can be correct, but drawing a conclusion from it is very dangerous.
I’ve written a follow up article on the commercial real estate blog REsheets and linked to your article in it.
Thanks for the fun, I’ve included the link below
http://www.resheets.com/the-3-rules-of-statistics-starting-with-the-super-bowl
Yes. I had to re-read that press release a couple of times before I really realized it was written rather tongue-in-cheek…. or at least I hope so.
I can’t figure out how commercial real estate can hold sway over a football game. But I’ve heard stranger reasons for betting on a team.
However, growing up my father was a HUGE Cowboys fan and Roger Staubach held god-like status around our house. Come to find out the guy is a savy businessman too! When Roger speaks, you listen. Or at least that’s what my daddy would say.
CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL CAUSATION!! what a worthless article