Tag Archives: pittsburgh

Strange Criteria for Picking a Super Bowl Winner

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This week, there’s a lot of talk about the passing prowess of Aaron Rodgers and the closing speed of Troy Polamalu. But if you’re looking to capitalize on a friendly Super Bowl wager this weekend, it seems unemployment rate may be as important as anything in predicting a winner. Yes, it’s bizarre, but the team from the city with the lowest jobless rate has won 16 of the last 20 games. RiseSmart reports:

Could a city’s economic prosperity, as measured by employment level, make a difference in its team’s chances of winning the Super Bowl?  Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests that it does.  According to a new analysis by RiseSmart, the team whose metropolitan area boasts the lower jobless rate has won 16 of the past 20 Super Bowls – an 80 percent success rate.  

Based on this historical correlation, the Green Bay Packers should be the favorite to defeat the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLV.   Through November, the 2010 unemployment rate for the Green Bay metro area was 7.7 percent, compared to 8.1 percent for the Pittsburgh metro area. 

On January 27, 1991, the New York Giants beat the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXV, despite the New York City metro area having a higher 1990 jobless rate than Buffalo.  After that game, however, the Super Bowl winning city had lower unemployment in 16 of the next 19 contests, including Super Bowl XLIV, in which New Orleans (6.7 percent 2009 unemployment) defeated Indianapolis (8.4 percent). 

Other facts of note:

  • On the six previous occasions that both teams’ metro areas have had unemployment greater than 5.5 percent — as is the case this year — the team from the metro area with the lower jobless rate has won in every instance.  

  • This is the first Super Bowl in the past two decades in which both teams hail from metro areas with jobless rates exceeding 7 percent.  On the four previous occasions that one team represented a city with 7+ percent unemployment, it lost the Super Bowl in every instance.

  • Since 1991, Super Bowl winning metro areas have had an average annual unemployment rate the prior year of 4.8 percent, compared to 5.4 percent for Super Bowl losing metro areas.

“Unemployment is the No. 1 issue in America today, and that will be true on Super Bowl Sunday as well,” said Sanjay Sathe, CEO of RiseSmart, a provider of next-generation outplacement and recruitment solutions. 

“In weighing the meaning of this analysis, correlation doesn’t imply causation, of course. But you could argue that a fan base with lower unemployment is more likely to attend games, buy team gear, celebrate at sports bars and, ultimately, cheer their team on to victory.  By contrast, a metro area that is struggling with high unemployment might have a subtle but insidious effect on its team’s morale,” Sathe said.

Super Bowl: Winner – Jobless Rate; Loser – Jobless Rate
1991: NY Giants – 5.5; Buffalo – 5.3
1992: Washington – 4.6; Buffalo – 7.2
1993: Dallas – 6.9; Buffalo – 7.5
1994: Dallas – 6.1; Buffalo – 6.8
1995: San Francisco – 5.9; San Diego – 7.1
1996: Dallas – 4.8; Pittsburgh – 6.0
1997: Green Bay – 3.4; New England – 4.1
1998: Denver – 2.9; Green Bay – 3.3
1999: Denver – 2.9; Atlanta – 3.3
2000: St. Louis – 3.5; Tennessee – 2.9
2001: Baltimore – 3.8; NY Giants – 4.4
2002: New England – 3.6; St. Louis – 4.6
2003: Tampa Bay – 5.6; Oakland – 6.2
2004: New England – 5.7; Carolina – 6.3
2005: New England – 5.0; Philadelphia – 5.1
2006: Pittsburgh – 5.2; Seattle – 5.0
2007: Indianapolis – 4.4; Chicago – 4.5
2008: NY Giants – 4.4; New England – 4.1
2009: Pittsburgh – 5.1; Arizona – 5.3
2010: New Orleans – 6.7; Indianapolis – 8.4

Note: Jobless rates are for year prior to Super Bowl year.  Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Eight is Enough for Penn. Voters

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I’m not one to be particularly intrigued by political trends, but this one is hard to pass up. Democrats and Republicans have swapped control of the governor’s office in Pennsylvania every eight years since 1954. That’s 56 years — 14 elections — with a number of other interesting circumstances.

  • Only one of those times did voters choose a governor who was of the same political party as the president
  • According to the Stateline.org story with the details, the political landscape is often described as “Pennsyltucky”: the urban areas of Pittsburgh in the West and Philadelphia in the East, with the equivalent of rural Kentucky in the vast, sparsely populated middle
  • The late primary in 2008 made Pennsylvania (like Indiana) a major player in the Obama-Clinton primary battle. The result has been a 1.2 million advantage for Democrats in registered voters
  • Philadelphia’s dominance, with nearly 80% of registered voters declaring themselves Democrats and the suburbs turning more and more that way

A few excerpts below and the full story here. This will be one to watch in November.

The “8-year cycle,” as it is known from political science classes to the Capitol press room, has spanned 14 gubernatorial elections. It prevailed even in the days when Pennsylvania governors were limited to a single four-year term, rather than two four-year terms, as they are today. Two political analysts recently calculated the odds of the cycle simply being a fluke at longer than 5,000 to 1.

“The body politic likes balance,” says Tom Corbett, who has good reason to approve of Pennsylvania’s regular switches in political thinking. Corbett is the state attorney general, he is the front-runner for the GOP gubernatorial nomination and — if 2010 turns out the way the last 56 years have gone — he will be the next governor to take the oath of office in Harrisburg.

The 2010 gubernatorial election will be a test of whether anti-Washington and anti-Harrisburg sentiment can overcome what has been a steadily rising Democratic tide in recent years, particularly in the heavily populated suburbs of Philadelphia, the nation’s sixth-largest city.

If this year comes down to turnout, no region will be more important than the suburbs of southeast Pennsylvania that ring Philadelphia. They vaulted Ed Rendell into the governor’s office eight years ago, ensured his re-election four years later and have taken on an outsized role in the state’s political calculus. 

Coal Conversion: We’ve Got Coal

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West Virginia has some really nice state parks and a Greenbrier resort (and former famous congressional bunker hideaway) that is second to none. But the state certainly isn’t top of mind when it comes to economic development and innovation.

A headline that screams "W. Va. Takes Lead in Future of Fuel" will certainly draw attention. The plan: take advantage of the state’s greatest natural resource — coal — and turn it into gasoline and methanol in the first project of its kind in the United States. Incidentally, one of the partners (a Houston-based company) has already helped build a coal-to-liquids plant in China.

The $800 million project will provide security for West Virginia’s expansive coal industry, create additional jobs and potentially be part of the long-term solution to our country’s energy challenges. The president of Consol Energy, based in Pittsburgh, goes a little overboard when he terms West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin "one of the few governors in the 50 states who can spell coal."

Indiana has coal, maybe not as much as West Virginia, but ample supplies. It is crafting an entrepreneurial path of its own with Duke Energy’s coal gasification plant in Edwardsport. Can our state be a player in the coal-to-liquids game? We’re not sure.

The West Virginia project is intriguing. Read about it here.

City-County Unification: Pittsburgh Trying

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The UniGov relationship between Indianapolis and Marion County that developed 40 years ago remains more the exception than the norm. Discussions of city-county working agreements in Fort Wayne and Evansville, among other places, have taken place in recent years.

The local government efficiency focus in-state has shifted to the Kernan-Shepard Commission and its 27 recommendations. Perhaps no issue is more important to long-term economic reform. Count the Indiana Chamber (with an assist from former Gov. Joe Kernan) among the chief advocates in spreading the word and working for enactment.

Louisville/Jefferson County is the recent model of success (2005 BizVoice story). Other city-county consolidations, according to Governing magazine: Nashville/Davidson County, Jacksonville/Duval County, Boston, Denver, New Orleans, Honolulu, Philadelphia and San Francisco.

A potential marriage between Pittsburgh and Allegheny County has never gained traction. Officials keep trying, but the latest proposal would exempt the county’s 129 other municipalities (129; seems like local government on steroids).

Pennsylvanians will have their say later this year at the polls. Indiana voters will be going to the polls in referendum elections for 43 township assessors (much more to come on that topic) with the General Assembly and others tackling comprehensive reform in 2009.