Super Bowl Odds 2024: Futures Betting for Next Year’s NFL Champion

Minutes after the Chiefs hoisted the Lombardi Trophy as winners of Super Bowl LVIII, the BetMGM online sportsbook posted odds for next season’s Super Bowl market.

Bettors who want to get involved in the early Super Bowl odds market can stake a position now.

Who Is Favored to Win the Super Bowl?

According to the current betting odds at BetMGM, the San Francisco 49ers are +600 favorites to win next year’s Super Bowl.

Odds to Win Super Bowl 2024

NFL Super Bowl Odds: Chiefs Downgraded After Second Straight Super Bowl Win

Many bettors are surprised to see San Francisco atop the inaugural 2024 Super Bowl odds table. After all, it’s the Chiefs that just became the first back-to-back NFL champions in 20 years. 

So why are the Chiefs not favorites? Why did they open at +700, rather than just a notch behind at, say, +575?

The most likely answer is money. Modern Super Bowl winners are predicated around the power and flexibility of the rookie contract, where cheap quarterbacks allow teams to build out a stronger, deeper 53-man roster. 

As long as the Brock Purdy contract continues to pay out less than $1 million in annual salary, the 49ers will likely have the best roster in the league. That seems to translate to a strong presence at the top of the Super Bowl odds table.

There’s also the historical nature of potential Chiefs three-peat. No NFL team has ever won three Super Bowls in a row, partially because of the way in which economics and competitive complacency conspire against successful franchises. 

So here’s my advice: Go ahead and place your Chiefs +650 Super Bowl bet right now. Mahomes & Co. always seem to be around in the NFL’s final four teams every January, and you can bet the Chiefs won’t be +650 in 10 month’s time. A good bet now gives you all kinds of hedge options in 2025. 

That said, I would be a little surprised if the Chiefs won next year’s Super Bowl. The Mahomes dynasty is far from over, but back-to-back-to-back Super Bowl victories are supremely unlikely according to the structures of the NFL. 

Super Bowl Odds Following NFL Free Agency

The NFL free agency period reshuffles the rosters and moves key players to new teams. As veteran handicappers know, some of these moves can have big implications for odds and betting targets. Sometimes both.

At BetMGM, the biggest news of the 2024 cycle was Russell Wilson’s move to the Steelers. 

Pittsburgh last won a playoff game at the end of the 2016 season. Since then, the Steelers have used a mashup of ineffective quarterbacks to lead the offense – Landry Jones, Mason Rudolph, Devlin Hodges, Kenny Pickett, Mitch Trubisky, and late-30s Ben Roethlisberger. In four of the past five years, PFF had graded Pittsburgh’s offense as 27th or worse.

Yet despite the underwhelming offensive firepower, the Steelers have remained competitive (and made four playoff appearances) because the defense remains elite. Forget about a great offense – if the Steelers could improve its offense to be league average, it could potentially be a Super Bowl contender.

That’s where some new blood at quarterback enters the mix. Pittsburgh acquired both the Russell Wilson contract and the Justin Fields contract this offseason. Because of how contracts work, Denver must continue paying Wilson’s salary, giving Pittsburgh what is essentially a free starting quarterback. That’s a powerful economic advantage in the era of quarterback mega-contracts.

Wilson is no longer the guy who scrambled his way to two Super Bowls in the 2010s. But the acquisition of Wilson and Fields has nonetheless inspired many bettors to believe that Pittsburgh has finally found the league-average quarterback that it needs to contend at the top of the AFC. The Steelers’ ticket volume has picked up tremendously at BetMGM over the last month.

NFL Odds 2024: Another AFC Arms Race

Remember last year, when the collective online sports betting universe marveled at the depth of one particular conference? Prepare for another offseason of AFC anticipation.

You think the Chargers had high hopes in 2023? Wait until Jim Harbaugh gets ahold of Justin Herbert.

Aaron Rodgers returns to the Jets … let’s see if the 40-year-old can play a whole quarter of football this year. (That’s assuming he’s not on the campaign trail.)

Even the Chiefs have said the Baltimore defense might be the best unit in football right now. (I doubt Lamar is going anywhere after securing his new contract, either.) 

A healthy Bills team. Sean Payton’s sophomore season in Denver. An increasingly dangerous Texans team. Did I mention Joe Burrow is going to be playing again?

The AFC is a crazy arms race loaded with quarterbacks, and it seems like three-quarters of the entire conference could have a realistic chance to play for a Super Bowl. So If you’re shopping for sleepers, don’t be afraid of the longshots. Next season’s champion could come from nearly anywhere.