Seeking political gain between the white lines

The intersection between the NFL and politics is as large as an ocean. Almost every American politician with relatively high aspirations has, at the very least, a tenuous tie to the league in some shape or form.

Former president Donald Trump almost bought the Buffalo Bills franchise in 2014, eventually losing out to the owners of the NHL's Buffalo Sabres, Terry and Kim Pegula. In fact, his failed attempt to acquire the franchise located in Upstate New York was one of his many business dealings that has been the subject of investigations by the New York Attorney General recently, with Trump accused of inflating the value of his assets and thus deceiving financial institutions.

During his time as owner of the New Jersey Generals in the USFL (United States Football League), he spearheaded a lawsuit against the NFL in a bid to force a merger. And while in office between 2016 and 2020, he frequently voiced his disdain for NFL athletes who took the knee in opposition to racism. They're only the highlights – or lowlights, for the want of a more appropriate phrase – of his long relationship with the league.

President Joe Biden, on the other hand, is a longtime Philadelphia Eagles fan when he isn't lending his support to Mayo's long quest for All-Ireland glory from the banks of the River Moy.

All the indications suggest that the pair will, once again, be going head-to-head in the race to the White House this November and, by all accounts, the election is wide open. Although it's early doors, America has been struck down with election fever for a few months at this stage. The trends guys and pollsters are already out in force, shedding light on the state of play between the two men. Polls have been taking place in key battleground states. Hacks have been observing the body language and mental stability of the front runners. Political anoraks have been looking back on previous elections to see if they can provide hints or patterns looking ahead to the autumn campaign.

But the more superstitious Americans with a keen eye for obscure NFL statistics may opt to ignore all the figures and graphs and in-depth analysis, instead turning their eyes towards a single game at FedEx Field in Washington DC midway through next season. For them, the Washington Commanders’ final home game before election day could well reveal the resident of the White House for the next four years.

The famed Redskins Rule was discovered by Steve Hirdt, a sports statistician who worked for Monday Night Football on ABC, at the turn of the millennium. In the lead-up to the Redskins' – now known as the Commanders – final home game before the election, Hirdt was researching previous seasons in the hope of sourcing relevant statistics that could be used by the commentator during that evening's game.

Hirdt had a reputation for statistical analysis that extended right throughout North American sports. He has since become Executive Vice President of Elias Sports Bureau, a sports data business that are the official statisticians for some of the most well-known leagues in the United States.

But on October 30, 2000, he was on the hunt for election-related statistics, with the election just over a week away. And he hit gold.

After meticulously looking through games close to elections in previous seasons, he discovered that whenever the Redskins won their final home game before polling day, the incumbent president's party won. Whenever the Redskins lost the game, the incumbent party lost. That pattern had remained unbroken since the side moved to Washington DC from Boston in 1937 – all fifteen elections corresponding with the fortunes of the local team. And until then, it hadn't occurred to anyone.

In a bizarre turn of events though, the pattern seemed to flip following the controversial 2000 election between Al Gore and George W Bush. Gore, the Democratic Party candidate who was also the Vice President at the time, initially appeared to have won the election and thus the incumbent party stayed in power, even though the Redskins had lost to the Tennessee Titans in their latest home game.

But recounts in Florida led to a month of navigating through a legal maze that ultimately led all the way to the Supreme Court, which eventually made a 5-4 decision in Bush's favour. The phenomenon continued.

Four years later though, the Redskins lost again in their final game before the election despite President Bush winning the subsequent election.

By that stage, the Redskins' Rule had already intrigued many, including the very man who had discovered it. So, Hirdt returned to the archives and came up with an updated version of the rule.

Speaking to ESPN a couple of years ago, he explained the update.

“Redskins Rule 2.0 established that when the popular vote winner does not win the election, the impact of the Redskins game on the subsequent presidential election gets flipped. So, with that, the Redskins’ loss in 2004 signalled that the incumbent would remain in the White House.” 

Needless to say, the Redskins rule quickly became somewhat of a head-scratcher.

Unfortunately for fans of curious statistics, the pattern appears to have disappeared since then, even if the updated version of the rule held in 2020 when the incumbent winner of the popular vote, the Democratic Party, won the election following a 25-3 drubbing by the Commanders over the Dallas Cowboys just before the election.

That's perhaps the beauty of both politics and sport – as much as we strive to find meaning and cohesion, it will always remain an astonishingly unpredictable beast.