COMMENT #1: Hi Marty,
I always like when you point to cycles in fields other than economics as well.
It has been just over 31.4 years since the Detroit Lions won a playoff game. Prior to that, it had been about 34 years (8.6×4) since they won a playoff game, the 1957 season championship (not including the 3 straight Playoff Bowl games that they won which were just to determine 3rd place for the ’60-’62 seasons).
Of course, taking the moneyline at -165 isn’t super enticing from a trading/risk management standpoint, but I think I’ll still have to throw a few bucks at it. It’s just time.
MR
COMMENT #2: Dear Good Sir – I thought maybe you might find this interesting (and a little bit of a more lighthearted distraction). I literally noticed only last night that:
October 8, 1956 – Don Larsen throws a perfect game with Yogi Berra catching
July 18, 1999 – After a 14-year feud with George Steinbrenner because he fired Yogi Berra unceremoniously as manager early in the 1985 season, Yogi Berra finally returns from his self-imposed exile to Yankee Stadium, … and David Cone pitches a perfect game on the very same day.
Literally, 43 years apart! Absolutely, mind blowing ….
COMMENT #3: I know you forecast the Triple Crown just off the cuff, and your calls on the Super Bowl are amazing. Is anything showing up for this year?
REPLY: I don’t think people realize that anything that can be reduced to a time series can be cyclically and technically analyzed. Sports is really no different than politics. If you look closely, you can see that attendance rises and falls with the business cycle, which is entirely understandable. These charts are merely looking at the number of points scored in each game. You can see that the NFL had scored over 53 points as its record high compared to 38 for the AFL. However, the AFL has a double top, suggesting that they are due to make new highs in terms of points scored.
Here are the arrays for the AFL & NFL. What I found very curious is that 2027 is a major target. Note that in the NFL, there is a Panic Cycle for next year. With a Panic Cycle in 2025 for the NFL and a Double Directional Change in 2026 for the AFL, even this suggests that war is on the horizon.
Sports have correlated with the economy and war for centuries. Look at the NY Baseball attendance. It peaked in 1920, just at the end of World War I. It declined going into the Great Depression as people were more interested in stocks than sports, and it finally bottomed in 1935. It then stagnated through World War II. Then, as World War II ended, we saw a spike upward again, peaking in 1947.
Thereafter, the financial crisis began with the devaluation of the British Pound in 1949 and the recession. Attendance declined for 25 years, bottoming in 1972. That was followed by a 36-year rally, reaching a high in 2008. The correlation between the economy, war, and sports is rather incredible.
When we know who the teams are, then you can run the cycles on each team. There are so many aspects that are open to analysis, from points to attendance to which team wins.
In ancient Rome, chariot racing was like the Super Bowl. Even slaves could become extremely rich. Flavius Scorpus (Scorpius) (68–95 AD) was one of the most famous charioteers in Rome during the end of the 1st century AD. Scorpius rode for the Green faction against the Blue faction. He was the favorite of Roman Emperor Domitian (81-96AD).
During Scorpius’ short lifetime, he accumulated 2,048 victories. He became the Michael Jordan of the day, becoming perhaps the most famous charioteer in Roman history. He earned truly vast sums of wealth as a slave, surpassing that of even his owners and professional Roman sponsors. Scorpius, however, died at the young age of just 27 years. The fans threw him money upon a victory, and he eventually bought his freedom.
Here is an extremely rare bronze token (tessera) depicting a chariot driver in a biga – two horses. We are not certain of its use, but there are several tessera issued during the reign of Tiberius (14-37AD), probably as private money due to the shortage of coins. The biga (2 horses) were faster, but the Quadraticus (four-horse) chariot was much more challenging to keep your horses in line. This is what made Scorpius so famous, rising to the level of a superstar.
Here is one of the rarest Roman coins by Trajan (98-117AD) depicting the Circus Maximus. Scorpius was succeeded by Gaius Appuleius Diocles (104 – after 146 AD), who became a subsequent superstar in the Circus Maximus. This Roman charioteer some have argued that he became the highest-paid athlete of all time.
Chariot racing was perhaps the ancient version of NASCAR/SUPERBOWL wrapped up in one. There were stunning crashes and even pileups sometimes, and drivers would die. Here we have the Circus Maximus again depicted on a Roman bronze sestertius of Emperor Caracalla (198-217AD).
The Flaminio Obelisk is one of the thirteen ancient obelisks in Rome. It was taken to Rome in 10 BC, about 20 years after the defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. This is the Obelisk of pharaoh Seti I. Augustus liberated it from Egypt and erected it in the Circus Maximus, which is depicted on these coins. It was the symbol of his victory over Cleopatra.
Some day, perhaps 1,000 years from now, they will look back at our society and its fascination with the Superbowl and World Cup Soccer. There is no doubt that the Romans knew well that if you gave the people bread and circuses, the politicians could do as they liked.
It has often been remarked that when Rome fell, its citizens were still laughing and attending all the various games to keep them distracted. Of course, that is an exaggeration. Still, in the end, the one great city that had taken nearly the entire world was itself taken by the onslaught of the barbarians, which, like Biden today, the emperor Valens (364-378AD) opened the border and let them in.
You will come to see with Biden, as the Neocons are preparing to wage war on so many fronts, they will push these migrants into military service. So many came to Rome that there was a food shortage and massive starvation. The local Roman military commanders, Lupicinus and Maximus, withheld supplies the emperor had earmarked for the barbarians and sold them at massively inflated prices. The historian Ammianus tells us that the situation became so desperate that even the families of barbarian chieftains sold their sons into slavery for dog meat.
The Romans looked down upon the migrants from the north as uncivilized and irrational. The Roman commanders felt justified in their discrimination and prejudice toward the barbarians from a long line of historical prejudice. So, history will repeat because human nature never changes.
