What’s happened to Super Bowl favorites?
They couldn’t give enough points to the Kansas City Chiefs and Oakland Raiders in the first two Super Bowls, which at the time was called the AFL and NFL Championship Game. Vince Lombardi’s Packers were 17-point favorites against Kansas City and 13-point favorites versus the Raiders and won the first two title games by 25 and 19 points.
To complete the 1968 season, the betting world knew how dominant the National Football League was versus the American Football League and didn’t buy Joe Namath’s guarantee, piling on the Baltimore Colts like they were a sure thing while giving 17½ points on the line.
Upset number one. Jets win, 16-7.
The following year, the last Super Bowl played before the leagues merged into the American and National Football Conferences, the underdog Chiefs downed the 10-point favored Minnesota Vikings, 23-7. Super Bowl results after four games showed favorites winning two games and covering two of the four games against the line. In the ensuing 37 years, favorites in the Super Bowl won 27 of 37 games straight-up and compiled a point spread record of 21-15-1.
The public usually bets the favorite, so you know the books were going to start eroding the advantage with the perceived better teams. But few would have expected that not only would the extra points edge the advantage to the underdogs, but the underdogs suddenly became viable money line plays.
Since 2007, favorites in the Super Bowl against the point spread are four wins and 13 losses, which is by design for the books. The more surprising figure is that favorites have also lost a majority of the games straight-up, 6 wins and 11 losses. The last favorite to win a Super Bowl and cover the point spread was the first one the Chiefs captured in 50 years, their victory over the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LIV.
In that game, the Chiefs were favored by 1½ points and won the game 31-20. In their succeeding four Super Bowls, the Chiefs were favored over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and lost while they were narrow underdogs in their wins over the Philadelphia Eagles two years ago and San Francisco last season. This year, the Chiefs are favored in a Super Bowl for the first time since they lost to the Buccaneers to complete the 2020 season.
Since Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes have combined to lead the Chiefs into the Super Bowl beginning in 2019, only one Super Bowl has not included Kansas City. That was Super Bowl LVI, a game won by the Los Angeles Rams over the Cincinnati Bengals, 23-20. Los Angeles came up short against the line in that game while giving 4½ points.
So, with that as recent history, do we have a reason to back the underdog in Super Bowl LIX scheduled for New Orleans a week from Sunday?
No.
History is a bell curve; it has times when it leans one way and then goes the other. The books can shade the advantage of a favorite or underdog and when the favorites dominated for decades, you could count on the books setting lines that bend the results the underdogs way.
Now that the dogs have dominated for nearly two decades, you can be sure of one thing, the books will adjust to pull the rug out from under an advantage taken by the public.
The advantage and ultimate winner at the Superdome this year will not be determined by whether they are the chalk or the dog, but other factors much more influential on the result. Those factors, as we see them, are heavily in favor of one of the Super Bowl LIX competitors, which according to our numbers are poised for a double-digit victory.
We look forward to delivering you that choice next week.