Survey Says? Patriots Picked By Public To Win Super Bowl

Added on Dec 20, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

Super Bowl

We hear plenty of news stories about the results of telephone polls, but now we’ve got one in the sports pages–the general public thinks that the New England Patriots are the most likely winners of Super Bowl XLV in Dallas this February. A national telephone survey has revealed that 34% of the public thinks that the Pats will be victorious in the NFL’s Championship Game. The Patriots are also the team that a small majority of the fans *want* to see win the big game.

The survey polled 3,300 NFL fans to get these results–as any political wonk knows, the way the question is worded can greatly influence the result of a phone survey but these seem pretty innocuous:

1* Which team is most likely to win the Super Bowl this year?

2* Regardless of who you think will win the Super Bowl, who do you want to win?

And here’s what the folks at Rasmussen Reports came up with:

The New England Patriots were the first team in the National Football League to punch their ticket to the playoffs, and now one in three football fans expects they will win this year’s Super Bowl.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of NFL fans shows that 34% expect quarterback Tom Brady and the Patriots to win their fourth Super Bowl in ten years. Eleven percent (11%) of fans expect the New Orleans Saints to repeat a championship this year, while 10% pick the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Nine percent (9%) say the Atlanta Falcons, who currently tie the Patriots for the best record in the league, to win the Super Bowl while another eight percent (8%) think the Philadelphia Eagles will win their first championship in franchise history.

The New York Giants, Chicago Bears and Baltimore Ravens round out the list with less than five percent (5%) of fans who expect those teams to win a championship this season. Another 10% pick some other team not mentioned in the survey. For purposes of the survey, NFL fans are defined as those adults who watch professional football at least once a week.

None of this comes as a huge shock to NFL betting enthusiasts. The Patriots are the current futures book favorite to win the Super Bowl and since we learned in handicapping 101 that this means they’re the ‘public’ team the results of this survey just validates what we already knew. It also gives us some validation to the contrarian positions we outlined in our report of Super Bowl futures betting odds last week. The teams that are ‘least likely’ to win the Super Bowl according to the survey results? The New York Giants, Baltimore Ravens and Chicago Bears. Only 9% of the public think the Atlanta Falcons will win the Super Bowl despite the fact that they share the best record in the league with the Patriots.

For our purposes, the methodology of the survey isn’t particularly important but its worth nothing that the Rasmussen people didn’t exactly poll former winners of the Hilton Superbook NFL contest–they defined ‘NFL fans’ as “those adults who watch professional football at least once a week.” Probably an accurate group for the purposes of the survey, but exactly the same type of people who have facilitated the building of those big hotels in the desert.

Here’s a couple of thoughts on how this information impacts our position on Super Bowl futures betting:

–If you think that the Patriots will win the Super Bowl, now is the time to ‘buy‘: In theory, you could wait and hope for a price adjustment after a bad performance–today’s relatively close win over a Green Bay team playing with Matt Flynn at quarterback wasn’t anywhere near a dominating effort–but given the ‘name value’ of the Pats and the fact that only two games remain on the schedule we don’t see the current futures prices on New England going anywhere but down.

–If you think the Falcons will win the Super Bowl, now is the time to buy: The Falcons have a huge game next Sunday at home against the New Orleans Saints and a decisive win here could possibly convince the public that Atlanta is ‘for real’. We knew that a long time ago. Since this is the Falcons last ‘real’ game–they conclude the season at home against lowly Carolina and don’t look for many of their starters to play–we’d rather lock in a good price now since there doesn’t seem to be much upside to waiting.

–If you think the Bears, Ravens or Giants have a chance you might as well wait: The Giants, in particular, could be ‘downgraded’ somewhat following their late game collapse against Philadelphia. In any case, given the public’s lack of enthusiasm its doubtful that even a dominating performance would do much to change the prices available.

In general, of course, you’re better off playing any futures play as early as possible for obvious reasons–the more teams that are officially eliminated from the playoff hunt will result in shorter prices on the teams that are still alive. Relative to these recommendations, if you’re looking to back Atlanta or New England you’d be best served to click through to one of the fine sportsbooks featured here and get down ASAP. For any one else, however, you’re excused for waiting a day or two.