Why does the NFL use Roman numerals for the Super Bowl?
This year’s NFL championship is officially known as “Super Bowl LVIII.” The letters LVIII are Roman numerals that mean “58,” so fans will hear commentators refer to “Super Bowl 58,” but the numbers won’t appear on any official National Football League or CBS images.
Believe it or not, it’s to avoid confusion.
According to the NFL’s postseason media guide, the naming convention was 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. In other words, this Sunday’s game would technically be the 2023 Super Bowl despite taking place in 2024, because it’s the championship for the 2023 season. (Fans and media will still often refer to it as the 2024 Super Bowl anyway, because it’s the only Super Bowl happening in 2024 A.D.)
The NFL started using Roman numerals for Super Bowl V (ahem, “Super Bowl 5″) in 1971 and then went back and renamed the previous championship games as Super Bowls I, II, III and IV.
Still, the NFL has never fully explained why it uses Roman numerals and not numbers, but it likely has to do visual designs for creating each game’s logo.
For example, the NFL did briefly abandon Roman numerals for Super Bowl 50 in 2016, because the league reportedly went through 73 versions of a logo with the letter “L” and decided it didn’t work. (Maybe it looks too much like “Super Bowll” or the “L” reminds fans of a loss?) A year later, the Roman numerals were back with Super Bowl LI in 2017.
Fun fact: 2024′s Super Bowl LVIII logo was designed by Syracuse University graduate Justin Wright, art director for the NFL.
How to read Roman numerals
Each letter represents a number. The letters “I” = 1, “V” = 5, “X” = 10, “L” = 50, “C” = 100, “D” = 500, and “M” = 1,000.
All other numbers are created by using a little bit of math. Generally speaking, you add the number value of each letter together, so “III” (1+1+1) = 3, “XXX” (10+10+10) = 30, and “LVIII” (50+5+1+1+1) = 58.
There are also rules for each letter: “I,” “X,” “C” and “M” can be repeated a maximum of three times, while “V” and “L” cannot be repeated. (The latter is because “VV” (5+5) would equal 10, which is already “X”; “LL” (50+50) would equal 100, which is already “C.”)
Roman numerals are typically written from left to right, highest to lowest, but when a left character is of a lesser value than the right character, you subtract the smaller number from the bigger number. For example, 4 would be written as “IV” (5-1) instead of “IIII,” while bigger numbers are trickier: 99 would be “XCIX” ((100-10) + (10-1)), and the year 1999 would be written as “MCMXCIX.”
See a full conversion chart here.
Could the NFL end up using numbers again someday in the future? Maybe. “Super Bowl C” in 2066 might look weirder than “Super Bowl 100,” for example. “Super Bowl LXXXVIII” (in 2054) would also be a ridiculously long way of writing “Super Bowl 88.”
Roman numeral conversion chart:
I: 1
V: 5
X: 10
L: 50
C: 100
D: 500
M: 1,000
Super Bowl LVIII is scheduled to kick off between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, Feb. 11, at 6:30 p.m. ET on CBS. The game can be streamed live on fuboTV (free trial). Fans can buy Super Bowl LVIII gear, including jerseys and hats, from Fanatics. Find the cheapest Super Bowl 2024 tickets on StubHub.
MORE:
Super Bowl 2024 hats: How to get Chiefs, 49ers gear online
Super Bowl: San Francisco 49ers vs. Kansas City Chiefs prediction, picks, props, and NFL odds
Super Bowl commercials: 2024′s seven best ads you can watch right now
Syracuse native Post Malone to sing ‘America the Beautiful’ at Super Bowl