For the 21st time in the past 26 years, the Super Bowl winning team hails from the metropolitan statistical area with the lower unemployment rate, according to an analysis by RiseSmart, a leading provider of enterprise career management solutions. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that the team whose metropolitan area boasts the lower jobless rate has now enjoyed an 81 percent success rate since 1989.

On Jan. 21, RiseSmart issued its annual Super Bowl prediction, forecasting that the Seattle Seahawks would defeat the Denver Broncos in the Big Game based on an analysis of BLS data. Through November, the 2013 unemployment rate for the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metropolitan statistical area was 5.9 percent, compared to 6.7 percent for the Denver-Aurora-Broomfield metro area, signaling a Seattle victory.

The Seahawks defeated the Broncos 43-8 Sunday in one of the most lopsided outcomes in Super Bowl history.

This is the fourth consecutive year that RiseSmart has issued its Big Game prediction based on unemployment data.  View a news release with a data table correlating teams and BLS jobless rates for the past 25 years, or see the data in a colorful Super Bowl infographic.

"We all enjoyed Super Bowl Sunday, but now it's Monday – and there are far too many people who don't have jobs to go to," said RiseSmart CEO Sanjay Sathe. "Placing transitioning workers in new jobs quickly is RiseSmart's mission, and we're proud that our approach to outplacement is putting people back to work twice as fast as the national average."