The Super Bowl begins at VI XXX p.m. Eastern time. That answers one question, but brings up another one: Why does the NFL still use Roman numerals to count off its Super Bowls? The Sports Critic tired of this XXXIV years ago.
When in Rome
Roman numerals weren’t there at the beginning. The first “Super Bowl” was officially known as the AFL-NFL World Championship Game. Kansas City Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt thought that was clunky. He told his hometown paper he preferred the term “Super Bowl.” It sounded like the “Super Ball” children were playing with in the 1960s.
As an aside, I could usually talk my mother into dropping a quarter into a vending machine at the supermarket and getting me a mini Super Ball. But I never thought to number those balls. And most of them ended up bouncing over the house and getting lost in the back yard. So it wouldn’t have mattered much.
Editing the Super Bowl
Anyway, there were a series of Super Bowls before they figured out, “we’re doing this every year, we’re gonna have to number them!” That wasn’t necessarily true. There’s a college Sugar Bowl every year, and the only thing that changes is the sponsor. It’s been backed by Allstate, USF&G and Nokia although, oddly, never by Dixie Crystals or Domino. It was apparently after the fifth Super Bowl that they decided to use the current counting system.
“The Roman numerals were adopted to clarify any confusion that may occur because the NFL Championship Game—the Super Bowl—is played in the year following a chronologically recorded season. Numerals I through IV were added later for the first four Super Bowls,” the League puts it. So, simplicity itself.
But why address confusion by creating it?
Quick: What number is XXXVIII?
Quick: Is “four” represented by IIII or IV? It could be either, as I’ve seen IIII on clock faces.
We shouldn’t have to think about such things.
Clear as Mud
It’s literally ironic (and, ironically, I am literally using both of those words correctly) that the NFL claims Roman numerals reduce confusion about the Super Bowl. After all, the other group that uses Roman numerals does so specifically to create confusion. It’s TV and film producers.
So Time Warner writes the year 1998 as MCMXCVIII. It’s trying to make it more difficult – not easier – for you to know what year a film was made. Otherwise, you might realize exactly how old the film is, and decide not to watch it (the low-def was probably a giveaway, anyway).
Perhaps the best Super Bowl logo lately was Super Bowl XL. It just looked so good on t-shirts. And The Critic’s true size these days is an XL, so the logo made sense, unlike all those “property of” shirts that are not, in fact, stolen property. That year offered a sensible opportunity to quit the Roman numeral habit.
Never too Late (Super Bowl edition)
Since it didn’t do so then, the NFL had another chance back in 2016. It branded its championship as Super Bowl 50. It would have made sense to just follow that with 51, 52, and so forth. After all, a lot of us make such major changes when we turn 50. Call it a Super Bowl midlife crisis. But it missed the window.
It’s not too late, of course. After we LIV through this year, how about “55” for the next Super Bowl? That would give the critic I less thing to be critical about. If you can count to VIII, Tweet me @TheSportsCriti2.
