Everything Predicts a Super Bowl Winner

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Who will take home Super Bowl glory this Sunday? Everyone wants to know, and everyone has theory, algorithm, or prairie animal who--they swear--will accurately predict the future. So don't turn to the real sports analysts for inside information--there are plenty of other ways to tell if the Packers or the Steelers will hoist the Vince Lombardi trophy. Here are just a few of the prognosticators to consider before make a friendly wager:


  • Music - "When you look at the musical pedigrees of the teams' home cities, Green Bay would seem like the underdog."
  • Pet Names - "Veterinary Pet Insurance Co. has run the numbers in its database of 485,000 pets and found that for a couple of years now, the winner of the big game has been the team with the most dogs or cats named after it or its players."
  • Jobless Rates - "The team whose metropolitan area boasts the lower jobless rate has won 16 of the past 20 Super Bowls -- an 80 percent success rate, according to an analysis by RiseSmart, which provides outplacement and recruitment tools."
  • Madden '11 - "The game predicts that the [Packers] Aaron Rodgers will make a stunning interception that will turn the game around and lead the Packers to victory."
  • 'The Internet' - "The Super Bowl team discussed most during the month of January ended up taking home the Vince Lombardi trophy every year since 2008, according to data collected by social media analysis company Infegy."
  • A Groundhog - "Jimmy [the groundhog] also predicted a Green Bay Packers Super Bowl victory Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers."


This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.