Super Bowl Sunday puts the Roman numeral knowledge of football fans to the test once a year.
The impending arrival of Super Bowl LVIII between the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs in Las Vegas will continue that trend. As opposed to MLB, or the NBA, or NHL, who all use a year to signify their championship game history, the NFL goes with a number. Or make that a numeral. The Super Bowl's reliance on Roman numerals may only be rivaled in popular culture by the Star Wars saga.
Perhaps the biggest game on the sports calendar every year draws a massive amount of viewers—many of whom may need to occasionally refamiliarize themselves with how Roman numerals work whenever the game's logo pops up on screen.
Well, consider this a quick tutorial. In an effort to wipe away any Super Bowl-related confusion, here's a look at how the game became intertwined with Roman numerals.
Super Bowl Name, Roman Numeral History
Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt is credited with coining the "Super Bowl" term that has since become such a crucial element of the sport's prominence. When Hunt's upstart American Football League teamed up with the NFL, among the many action items at hand was what to do with the new championship game.
That included what to name it.
Hunt suggested the Super Bowl, per the Chiefs website, which he only considered a placeholder at the time. And the name had come to him from the unlikeliest of sources.
"I do not recall any predetermined thought relative to this rather unhistoric moment," Hunt wrote in a 1986 New York Times article. "My own feeling is that it probably registered in my head because my [children] had a toy called a Super Ball, and I probably interchanged the phonetics of 'bowl' and 'ball.'"
Other names for the game reportedly included the "Pro Bowl," "The Big One," or even the "World Series of Football" before the two leagues agreed on the straightforward "AFL-NFL World Championship Game" ahead of the inaugural contest at the conclusion of the 1966 season.
Obviously, the Super Bowl name stuck—eventually. The term was adopted for the third edition of the game, and Roman numerals soon followed starting, with Super Bowl V.
According to the NFL, 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."
So, in short, the league says it uses the numerals to avoid any puzzlement that could come about since the Super Bowl is played in the following year from when the regular season starts. For example, the winner of Sunday's Chiefs-49ers Super Bowl will be considered the 2023 season champions, even though the game is being played in 2024.
The only time the league hasn't used a numeral for a big game since the style was implemented was for Super Bowl 50, likely because the league didn't want it named "Super Bowl L."
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How To Read Roman Numerals
Roman numerals use symbols—letters of the alphabet—in a system of numerical notation based on the ancient Roman method.
The symbols include I, V, X, L, C, D and M, which represent respectively one, five, 10, 50, 100, 500 and 1,000. A numeral placed after another of equal or greater value adds its value (LVI equals 50 + 5 + 1, or 56), while one placed before one of greater value subtracts its value (IV equals minus-1 + 5, or four). Only three identical symbols are typically used consecutively.
What Number Is The 2024 Super Bowl?
The Chiefs and 49ers will face off for the Lombardi Trophy on Sunday in Super Bowl LVIII, or in other terms Super Bowl 58. The game is scheduled to kick off at 6:30 p.m. ET inside Allegiant Stadium, and it will air on CBS.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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