My friends and colleagues will tell you I love Football and Retail equally, so whenever I can combine those two loves, it makes for a great day.  Well, for the third straight year, Jones Lang LaSalle and its Executive Chairman of the Americas, Roger Staubach, are making predictions for the Super Bowl based on commercial real estate vacancy rates.

While sports experts and Las Vegas oddsmakers look to point differentials, quarterback ratings and other on-the-field stats, Roger and the JLL team are once again sticking with what they know best — commercial real estate — to determine their pick.  Though JLL formally uses office market statistics for its yearly prediction, I love retail and I love sports so I thought, why not look at it from a retail perspective.  By analyzing the last five years of retail vacancy rates of past Super Bowl teams, it was the city with the lower vacancy rate that proved who would come out on top.  That means this year’s prediction – when looking at retail statistics – is the San Francisco 49ers which have a 2.8 percent vacancy rate compared with Baltimore’s 5.9 percent vacancy rate for all types of retail.  Plus, with my son having recently moved to the Bay Area as the offensive line coach of the University of California Golden Bears, I even more fully believe in the Retail team’s hypothesis. While Super Bowl MVP and Executive Chairman of JLL agrees with the firm’s office hypothesis which predicts the Ravens will win, his heart is with the retail prediction of the 49ers!

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Steve Yenser
Executive Vice President, Retail
+1(404)995-6336
steve.yenser@am.jll.com