By Jake Rossen
Every year, tens of millions of people tune into the Super Bowl to find out which football team will be crowned the winner for the current season. In 2024, the Kansas City Chiefs will be standing opposite the San Francisco 49ers. And while it’s the 58th edition of the contest, it’s not referred to as Super Bowl 58. Instead, it’s marketed as Super Bowl LVIII. So why does the National Football League insist on using Roman numerals for this most modern of sporting events?
Simple: The NFL is hoping to avoid confusing you.
The Super Bowl is traditionally held in the year following the beginning of the regular season schedule. The winner of the Chiefs/49ers game will technically be the 2023 Super Bowl champions. If the league opted to follow the lead of the NBA or MLB and label their championship with the year, then it would become difficult to follow. If this were Super Bowl 2024, shouldn’t it really be Super Bowl 2023? And if it were, why it is it being contested in 2024? It’s a semantics issue, but one that would quickly create confusion.
That doesn’t address why the NFL opts for Roman numerals over numbers. It goes back to clarity: If this were Super Bowl 58, then it’s possible some people might conflate the event name and number with the year. Super Bowl XXII, for example, which was held in 1988, might get mixed up with Super Bowl 2022, which was Super Bowl LVI. It’s simply easier to use Roman numerals to avoid the issue completely.
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