Today, “Super Bowl” is one of the most recognizable names in sports. But the name was never the product of a marketing team or a big branding meeting. It started as a half-joking suggestion in a 1966 letter, and it may have been inspired by a bouncy rubber ball that belonged to a team owner’s children. Here is how the biggest game in American sports got its name, its Roman numerals and its trophy.
A championship game without a name
In 1966, the National
Football League and the rival American Football League agreed to merge. As part
of the deal, the champions of the two leagues would meet in a new title game at
the end of the season. The game needed a name, and nobody had one.
Lamar Hunt, the founder
of the AFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, served on the committee planning the merger.
In a letter to NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle dated July 25, 1966, Hunt wrote
that he had “kiddingly called it the ‘Super Bowl,’ which obviously can be
improved upon,” according to the Kansas City Chiefs.
Rozelle was not a fan.
He reportedly found the name “corny,” and other ideas were discussed, including
“The Big One” and “the World Series of Football.”
The toy that may have inspired it
Hunt later said the name
may have come to him from a popular toy. His wife, Norma, had bought their
children Wham-O Super Balls, small hard-rubber balls that bounced remarkably
high. Hunt said he may have subconsciously turned “Super Ball” into “Super Bowl.”
Hunt never claimed to be
certain about it, and Mental Floss describes the toy story
as plausible but unproven. Still, the toy became part of football history: one
of the Hunt family’s Super Balls has been shown in football exhibits, including
the Gridiron Glory exhibit in Kansas City, alongside a note from Wham-O to
Hunt.
Why a “bowl”?
The second half of the name came from college
football. The Yale Bowl, which opened in 1914, was named for the way its seats
circled the field like a bowl. When the Rose Bowl stadium opened in Pasadena in
1922, its famous New Year’s game took the stadium’s name. Its success led to
the Sugar, Orange, Sun and Cotton Bowls in the 1930s, and “bowl” came to mean a
big postseason game, Mental Floss explains.
By 1966, every football fan understood “bowl”
to mean a special, end-of-season game. Adding “Super” made it sound bigger than
all the others.
The name that stuck anyway
Timeline of how the Super Bowl
got its name and numbers
When the first game was played
on January 15, 1967, the tickets called it the “AFL-NFL World Championship
Game.” The Green Bay Packers beat Hunt’s Kansas City Chiefs 35-10. But
reporters and fans were already using Hunt’s nickname, and it caught on almost
immediately.
The league eventually accepted
what the public had decided. The third championship game, played in January
1969, became the first one officially called the Super Bowl, and the first two
games were renamed after the fact.
Why Super Bowls use Roman numerals
Roman numerals arrived
with Super Bowl V in 1971, the first game after the AFL and NFL fully merged,
according to TVLine. The earlier games
were numbered retroactively.
There was a practical
reason. An NFL season starts in one calendar year and ends in the next, so
calling a game by its year was confusing. A number for each game avoided the
problem, and the Roman style gave the event a sense of tradition. Hunt is again
often credited with pushing the idea.
There has been one
exception. The league used “Super Bowl 50” in 2016 instead of “Super Bowl L”
because, as an NFL branding executive told ABC7, “the ‘L’ isn’t as
pleasing to the eye.” Roman numerals returned the next year with Super Bowl LI.
The trophy’s name
The winning team receives the Vince
Lombardi Trophy, named after the coach whose Green Bay Packers won the first
two Super Bowls. The trophy was renamed for him in 1970, the year Lombardi
died, according to Top End Sports,
so his name and Hunt’s are both tied to the game’s identity: one named the
game, and the other’s name is on its prize.
Our take: why the name worked
Most sports names are chosen
carefully. “Super Bowl” was the opposite: a casual phrase from a family toy
that a league commissioner thought was corny. It worked because it was simple,
easy to say and a little playful. It told fans exactly what the game was:
bigger than any bowl game they already knew. Decades later, it is hard to
imagine the game being called anything else.
Frequently asked questions
Who named the Super Bowl?
Lamar Hunt, founder of the
Kansas City Chiefs, suggested the name in 1966 while the AFL and NFL were
planning their championship game.
Was the Super Bowl named
after a toy?
Possibly. Hunt said his
children’s Wham-O Super Ball may have inspired the name, but he was never sure.
What was the first Super
Bowl called?
It was officially the AFL-NFL
World Championship Game. The Super Bowl name became official with the third
game, played in January 1969.
When did the Super Bowl
start using Roman numerals?
With Super Bowl V in 1971. The
only exception was Super Bowl 50 in 2016.
Why is the trophy called the
Lombardi Trophy?
It honors Vince Lombardi, the
Green Bay Packers coach who won the first two Super Bowls. It was named after
him following his death in 1970.
Sources
1.
Kansas City Chiefs – Gridiron Glory at Union
Station: from Super Ball to Super Bowl – Hunt’s letter, the Super Ball, the first game’s
official name.
2.
Mental Floss – The accidental origins of the Super
Bowl’s name – the toy theory, the “bowl” history, the
official adoption in 1969.
3.
TVLine – Why the Super Bowl uses Roman numerals – Roman numerals starting with Super Bowl V.
4.
ABC7 – NFL: It’s Super Bowl 50, not L – the one-year exception.
5.
Top End Sports – Vince Lombardi Trophy – the trophy’s renaming in 1970.
