On Sunday, the defending NFL champion Kansas City Chiefs face the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LIX. The Chiefs are pursuing a historic Super Bowl three-peat, while the Eagles are seeking redemption after losing to the Chiefs in their last Super Bowl face-off in 2023.

As fans start comparing the relative strengths of the opposing teams ahead of the big game, CoStar analysts examine how the two commercial real estate markets match up.

Inventory: 374,720 units

Apartment renter demand flourished in Philadelphia over the past year, marking the second-highest volume of new leases on record. However, despite strong demand, Philadelphia's apartment vacancy rate still ticked up 10 basis points year over year due to a coinciding wave of elevated apartment completions.

Despite average apartment rent growth ranking as the ninth strongest among the 30 largest U.S. apartment markets at 2%, the City of Philadelphia has experienced a record-setting period of apartment construction, which flattened urban rent growth to 0%. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia suburbs have fared much better with Southern New Jersey hitting a hot streak, recording the fastest rent gain average of over 4% to boost the regional average. With new construction easing from recent highs, rent growth in Philadelphia's rental apartment sector is projected to pick up later in mid-2025.

Inventory: 179,907 units

The Kansas City multifamily market saw demand for apartments increase in 2024, and pressure from new construction began to slow. At the end of last year, the multifamily vacancy rate was 7.9%, 90 basis points lower than the prior year, as all three property segments saw vacancy decline.

Improving conditions have increased rent growth across the market to 3.2% at the end of 2024. This puts Kansas City second in the country among multifamily markets, with at least 75,000 units, trailing only Detroit.

Inventory: 336 million square feet

Annual office absorption, the net change between move-ins and move-outs, has turned Eagles green just in time for this Sunday’s Super Bowl, totaling 616,000 square feet. This is the first time since 2018 that Philadelphia companies leased more office space than returned space to the market, signaling some stability.

Annual office rent growth increased by 1%, around 10 basis points ahead of Kansas City at the end of 2024. While Philadelphia does not typically see robust office rent growth, the market has benefited from the stability of the local healthcare, life sciences and education sectors.

Inventory: 129 million square feet

As the pace of office moveouts has slowed and the amount of sublet space has decreased 40% from the peak, annual demand for Kansas City office space turned positive for the first time in over two years at the end of 2024. However, rent growth continued to slow in conjunction with national trends. Kansas City’s office market saw rents increase by an average of 0.9% at the end of 2024, about 20 basis points behind the national average and very close to Philadelphia’s performance.

Inventory: 638 million square feet

Occupiers of Philadelphia industrial space leased an additional 6.4 million square feet in the past year, making Philadelphia the top Northeast market for industrial demand. However, similar to the trend in apartments, the influx of new industrial developments in recent years has caused rent growth to slow to an annual average of 4.6%, down 700 basis points since the Eagles’ last appearance in a Super Bowl in 2023. Despite strong demand, ongoing construction projects are anticipated to weigh on rent growth for the rest of the year, though at a more manageable pace than in previous years.

Inventory: 368 million square feet

While asking rents for industrial space across Kansas City increased 5.0% over the past year, this has moderated in recent quarters as vacancy increased following sharp declines just after the pandemic. Still, the pace of industrial rent growth is well above the market's pre-pandemic average of 2.7% from 2015 to 2019 and, like Philadelphia, is outpacing the national average.

Inventory: 349 million square feet

While Philadelphia’s retail vacancy rate is near an all-time low at 4.1%, this is still a 10-basis-point increase year over year due to lower demand for store space. Retailers returned 178,000 square feet throughout 2024. Philadelphia’s retail rent growth continues to fall behind the pace in Kansas City. However, limited new construction is expected to set the stage for availability to tighten when it comes to modern, in-demand retail locations.

Inventory: 134 million square feet

A record-low retail vacancy rate at the end of 2024 continues to fuel rent growth across the Kansas City retail market. With a vacancy rate of just 3.7% at the end of 2024, Kansas City bests the national average by 40 basis points. As a result, retail rents increased by an average of 4.6% in Kansas City last year, compared to the national average of 2.1% and are 300 basis points higher than Philadelphia's.

While on the field, the season records for the Chiefs at 15-2 and the Eagles at 14-3 are pretty evenly matched. But Kansas City has a slight advantage on the commercial real estate playing field heading into Super Bowl LIX.