The Denver Broncos and San Francisco 49ers alternated as favorites to win Super Bowl XLVIII all offseason and entered Week 1 as the +600 co-favorites to hoist the Lombardi Trophy in February at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
No surprise it’s those two as the 49ers were the Super Bowl runners-up last year and the Broncos entered the 2012 postseason as the overall betting favorites. However, if considering a futures bet on the SuperBowl right now, recent history shows that the last two teams to bet on would be the 49ers and Broncos.
Better to be No. 6-10?
The last Super Bowl winner who was the preseason favorite was Indianapolis in 2006. In the last five seasons, no team among the top five favorites entering the season has won the Super Bowl.
2008: The New England Patriots were the +400 favorites on Super Bowl betting odds in mid-July. The Pats looked like a juggernaut the season before, becoming the first team to go 16-0 in the regular season, but the Pats were shocked by the Giants in the Super Bowl. In Week 1 of the ’08 season, Tom Brady went down with a season-ending injury and New England missed the playoffs. The Pittsburgh Steelers were +2000 entering camp and beat Arizona (+5000) for the title.
2009: The Patriots again were favored, this time at +500, with Brady back healthy. Pittsburgh was a +900 second-favorite to repeat in Super Bowl online betting. The New Orleans Saints (+2000) beat the Colts (+1400) for the title in the only Super Bowl featuring two dome teams.
2010: The two previous Super Bowl teams were favored with Indianapolis at +800 and New Orleans at +900. Your winner: Green Bay (+1400) over Pittsburgh (+2000). The Packers barely snuck into the playoffs that year but Aaron Rodgers then got hot.
2011: The Packers were +650 to repeat in 2011 with New England the +500 favorite on SuperBowl odds. The Giants (+2200) upset the Patriots in the big game again. New York was the biggest long-shot winner in this five-year span.
2012: Green Bay and New England were +600 co-favorites last year. Baltimore (+1600) upset the Patriots in Foxboro in the AFC title game and then the 49ers (+1200) in the Super Bowl that will be remembered for a power outage.
Explain, Please
A lot of this can be explained away by where the “public” money is spent. That’s usually on the Patriots because they have Brady. Ditto the Packers with Rodgers. The teams with the biggest stars at quarterback generally draw the most money. The Cowboys are another example and they’ve been a playoff failure since the mid-1990s.
Here’s one to add to your SuperBowl betting tips. Because it’s the first cold-weather outdoor Super Bowl, that would presumably heavily favor a team like Green Bay (+1200) or New England (+1000) that is used to the wintry conditions. Dome teams, such as the Saints or Colts, generally struggle in winter weather as they are built for neutral conditions. The NFC opened at -1 on the Super Bowl lines.