- Favoured Seattle Seahawks win Super Bowl LX
- Winners hail from the NFC or National Football Conference
- America’s S&P 500 index has traditionally performed better after an NFC win
- Seahawks’ prior win in the big game ushered in a year of double-digit percentage gains for US equities
“Punters will have been pleased to see the Seattle Seahawks win Super Bowl LX, as they became the first team to win the big game and cover the bookies’ points handicap spread since Kansas City Chiefs in 2020. Investors with an equally keen sense of history may have also cheered when the four-and-a-half-point favourites easily handled the New England Patriots,” says AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould.
“This is because of the so-called ‘Super Bowl’ rule, which states that America’s S&P 500 stock market index tends to do better when the NFL championship is won by the team that hails from the National Football Conference, or NFC – and the Seahawks hail from that side of the league.
“As a result of the merger between two rival competitions in the 1960s, the National Football League (NFL) is split into two conferences, National (NFC) and American (AFC), whose winners meet in the Super Bowl to decide the overall champion.
“The US stock market, as benchmarked by the S&P 500 index, has, on average, performed better in years when the team from the NFC has won and less well when the team from the AFC has claimed the Super Bowl and the players have won their championship rings.
“Before last night’s game, teams from the NFC had won the Super Bowl 30 times, against 29 victories for rival AFC clubs.
Source: NFL, LSEG Refinitiv data. First Super Bowl played in January 1967. Average returns based on calendar year of each game.
"This effect has become a little less pronounced over time, but it is noticeable nonetheless, even if the US stock market has taken this decade's trio of triumphs from the AFC'S Kansas City Chiefs in its stride.
Source: NFL, LSEG Datastream data. First Super Bowl played in January 1967. Average returns based on calendar year of each game.
“After the early dominance of the National Football League’s (now NFC’s) Green Bay Packers, the 1970s saw the AFC’s Miami Dolphins, Pittsburgh Steelers and Oakland (now Las Vegas) Raiders rule the roost, with only the NFC’s Dallas Cowboys getting in the way.
“Yet from an economic perspective, those teams ruled the field after an oil price shock, galloping inflation and soaring interest rates made the 1970s difficult years for investors.
“Come the 1980s, the Paul Volcker-led Federal Reserve had begun to tame inflation and cut interest rates, while Reaganomics’ supply-side reforms were also helping to drag America out of its post-Vietnam funk.
“As it happened, the NFC dominated that decade, as the team now known as the Washington Commanders, the New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers bagged multiple Vince Lombardi Trophies, thanks in no small part to their remarkable coaches, Joe Gibbs, Bill Parcells and Bill Walsh.
“The NFC’s representative in the Super Bowl won the title on thirteen straight occasions between 1985 and 1997, as Dallas and Green Bay established fresh dynasties in the 1990s, when benign inflation, low interest rates, globalisation, the Greenspan put and the rise of technology stocks gave US equities a further boost – although the AFC got its slice of the action as the Denver Broncos, under quarterback John Elway, ended a rotten run of three Super Bowl defeats to win back-to-back titles as the technology bubble inflated in 1998 and 1999.
“AFC teams, in the form of the Baltimore Ravens and the New England Patriots (for Tom Brady’s first win of six in his storied career), then copped the downdraft as the bubble burst and the S&P 500 plunged in 2001 and 2002, although it was the NFC’s New York Giants who were kings of the NFL hill when the Great Financial Crisis struck in 2008.
“Since then, the Patriots, Broncos, Steelers and Chiefs have returned to the summit, giving the AFC a chance to shine as US equities have forged a long bull run and close up the historic stock market performance gap between the two conferences – but the difference is still large enough to keep watchers of the Super Bowl rule interested.
“Seattle only joined the NFL as an expansion franchise in 1976 and did so as a member of the NFC’s West division. They then moved to the AFC West in 1977, only to move back to the NFC West in 2002, when the Houston Texans joined the league.
“It took Seattle thirty-eight years to win the Super Bowl as they hammered the Denver Broncos at the conclusion of the 2013 season, in February 2014’s Super Bowl XLVIII, and they nearly repeated the trick in the following year, as they only lost to Brady’s New England Patriots on the final play of Super Bowl XLIX.
“Under the guidance of then coach Pete Carroll and quarterback Russell Wilson, the Seahawks remained competitive for much of the next decade, and investors will be hoping that the S&P 500’s 11.4% advance after the club’s first league championship a year ago sets a promising precedent, especially as 2026 is off to a choppy start.
“The S&P 500 is up by just over 1% in the year to date, to make it one of the worst performers among the world’s major indices so far, with only Canada, China and India’s headline benchmarks doing worse.”
Source: NFL, LSEG Refinitiv data. *Packers’ wins as part of the pre-1967 National Football League classified as National Football Conference (NFC). **Jets’ and Chiefs’ wins earned as part of the pre-1967 American Football League (AFL), classified as American Football Conference (AFC).
