The football team whose city has the most commercial real estate vacancies will win the Super Bowl. That is the prediction of Roger Staubach who led the Dallas Cowboys to two Super Bowl victories in 1972 and 1978. At present, Staubach is the Americas executive chairman for Jones Lang LaSalle - a global financial and professional services company specializing in real estate. Based on his expertise and experience in sports and property, the former-football-player-turned real-estate-executive stands by his belief.
“As a student of both football and commercial real estate, I can tell you that this vacancy rate hypothesis is absolutely the real deal. When it comes to picking a winner, you can throw everything else out the window,” says Roger Staubach, the Americas executive chairman for Jones Lang LaSalle.
Social and Economic Impact
Staubach and his son Jeff (a senior vice president at Jones Lang LaSalle) have been blogging about Super Bowl XLV and throwing a bit of real estate into the mix. Whether or not you give credence to the prediction, the Super Bowl does have a social and economic impact on the city that holds the event. Actually in 2010, the Staubach team launched "Countdown to the Super Bowl: The Economic and Social Impacts for North Texas." Staubach chaired the bid to hold the event in North Texas.
Financial Giant
Jones Lang LaSalle has stayed in the background as Staubach shares his predictions. The global financial firm has not offered any explanation about the connection between commercial real estate and Super Bowl wins. Of course, real estate predictions can be based on anything from a crystal ball to empirical research. Yet it is doubtful that Jones Lang LaSalle favors the crystal ball method. The professional services company is more the 'trends and statistics' type who would favor scientific methods.
Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels handles major financial announcements. The group forecast the 2011 deal volume (US $13 billion) in the Americas. The team figured out that REITs would be among the most active buyers with total volume for 2010 expected to be US $10.5 billion.
Winning Prediction
Not surprisingly, Jones Lang LaSalle has not weighed in to any great extent on the 'winning' prediction. Apparently though, the company has no objection to their executive chairman for the Americas claiming that his prediction is the "real deal." Maybe Jones Lang La Salle and Roger Staubach are smart enough to know that they are the winners getting the real deal.
We can predict that the 'prediction' is great publicity. According to the NFL, 65% of Super Bowl attendees are corporate executives. The group could include executives who might buy office space in the city or even relocate their headquarters. After these predictions, they will remember the names of Roger Staubach and Jones Lang LaSalle.
Who Will Win The Super Bowl?
Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Green Bay Packers Sunday - February 6, 2011
According to Staubach's theory, the Green Bay Packers will win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. Green Bay's commercial vacancy rate is 18.9% but Pittsburgh has one of the lowest office vacancy rates in the US – just 12.1%.
And Yet Another Interesting Fact…
Since 2002, almost two thirds of Super Bowl wins have gone to the city with the most office space vacancies.
Who Do You Think Will Win Super Bowl XLV?
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