Using the Super Bowl to Predict the Winning League in the World Series

Now that the Super Bowl is over, pundits can fully turn their attention to the true National Pastime, and consider which teams will have a good shot at the World Series. Let me save them (and you) some work by telling you that the winning World Series team will more than likely come from the American League. Why? Because the Denver Broncos, of the American Football Conference, won the Super Bowl.

Below is a chart showing the result of each Super Bowl with the winning team and conference, and the World Series winner and their league (we’ll get to the All-Star Game result in a bit). Through 2015, there have been 49 Super Bowls, with a corresponding 48 World Series (thanks for nothing, 1994). The winning conference in the Super Bowl has matched the winning league in the World Series in 27 of those 48 years (56.3% success rate). Furthermore, in each of the last nine years, and 13 out of the last 14 years, there has been a match.

Additionally, if you want to try and align the leagues/conferences including the MLB All-Star Game, the results aren’t terrific historically, but they are pretty solid of late. In the Super Bowl era, there have been 48 years that saw a Super Bowl winner, an All-Star Game winner and a World Series winner (2002’s All-Star Game tie mucks up the data a bit). All three entities have matched up winning leagues and conferences only 14 times (29.2%). However, there has been symmetry in game results in nine out of the last 12 years going back to 2004.

So, congrats to (insert name of American League team here) . . . 2016 World Series champs!

[Note: I know the Broncos are considered the champs of the 2015 season, not 2016, but I’m only referencing games played within the same calendar year]