And Now You Know!: Presidential Winners

Tuesday was a historic day in the United States. I'll keep my political point of views out of this but it got me thinking about football, more particularly, the Super Bowl and how teams fared with different presidents in office. Surprisingly, I found that there is a correlation between winning the Super Bowl and who is in office.

We all know that the Super Bowl winning team gets to go visit the President and share a photo after but who knew that the President actually had an impact on the game? It all dates back to January 15,1967, the very first Super Bowl played and our Commander in Chief at the time was Lyndon Baines Johnson, serving in his second term after he took over after JFK was assassinated.

That first Super Bowl between the NFL and AFL featured the Packers and the Chiefs in somewhat of a lackluster game with the Packers winning 35-10. The Packers enjoyed success the following year while LBJ was still in office, this time against the Oakland Raiders in another blow out 33-14.

In the fall of 1968 a man by the name of Richard Millhouse Nixon was elected president and a week before his inauguration the New York Jets won what is dubbed the biggest upset in Super Bowl history over the Baltimore Colts. Score one for the AFL (soon to be the AFC)and the Republicans, as they had officially taken power from the Democrats and the NFL (soon to be the NFC).

If you look at just inauguration years, here is how it breaks down.

When a Republican is inaugurated in January, the AFC is 5-2 in that Super Bowl
When a Democrat is inaugurated in January, the NFC is 3-1 in that Super Bowl

Follow the Jets' win with another Super Bowl victory for the AFL, the Kansas City Chiefs, and then a third year in a row as the AFC's Baltimore Colts took the crown. As time went on the trend continued for the majority of the time. When a Republican was in office, the AFC seemed to have the upper hand in the Big game. When a Democrat came to power, the NFC quickly gained control atop the league.

When a Republican is in office, the AFC is 13-7 in the Super Bowl***
When a Democrat is in office, the NFC is 8-2 in the Super Bowl***

Before you tally it up and do the math and get worked up, I must admit that I omitted 2 presidents from this tally. I took out Democrat Jimmy Carter and Republican Ronald Regan. As with any statistics module, you have anomalies. No one cared particularly for Carter as in a recent poll by Wall Street Journal in 2005, Carter was ranked as the 34th worst President. The NFC was 1-3 when Carter was in office (Thus, 9-5 for the NFC when a Democrat is in office).

Then there is Roland Reagan. I am omitting his entire 8-years in which the AFC went 2-6 (15-13 for the AFC with Republicans. Also note that the AFC went 0-4 with George H. W. Bush in office, a tough stretch of 2-8 in the 80s). I target Reagan's time in office because of the 1982 strike shortened season in which the Redskins won the Super Bowl after the NFL implemented a 16 team playoff after a 9 game season. The other reason, Reagan was really a Democrat. He started his political career on the Left and stayed that way until he was 51. So you could count his time in office for the NFC as 6-2, rather than 2-6 for the AFC. It's Reaganomics, just stick with me on it.

If you want more stats, look at a list of the NFL Champions prior to the Super Bowl era. The NFL had their own playoff between the two best teams in each conference between 1933-1965, the American Division (aka AFC) versus the National Division (aka NFC). In the years in which the Democrats held office the National Division was 17-8 and in eight years in which Eisenhower stepped in as Republican President, the American Division was 4-4, which is pretty good considering the dominance of the National Division.

Hey, It's not an exact science but the odds are on the side of the underdog Cardinals from the NFC with a Democrat being inaugurated this week. Here's to history!

And Now You Know! (And Knowing is Half the Battle)

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