Hoping to avoid a marketing ’L’, the NFL will temporarily halt its long-standing tradition of identifying Super Bowls by Roman numerals when the 50th installment rolls around.
ESPN reported Wednesday the NFL will officially denote the Feb. 7, 2016 championship game as Super Bowl 50. Otherwise, it would have been called Super Bowl L — a no-win situation for the league.
“When we developed the Super Bowl XL logo, that was the first time we looked at the letter ’L,’” NFL vice president Jamie Weston told ESPN. “Up until that point, we had only worked with X’s, V’s and I’s. And, at that moment, that’s when we started to wonder what will happen when we get to 50?”
So the switch was made, but the league says it will only be a one-year hiatus. That means the following year’s game in Houston will be called Super Bowl LI. Too bad Long Island wasn’t in the bidding.
In recent years, some news organizations have gone out of their way to avoid using the unwieldy Roman numerals — referring to the game by year or Arabic numbers instead — so it will be interesting to see if the NFL sticks to its guns and goes back to the Roman system.
• Marc Lancaster can be reached at mlancaster@washingtontimes.com.
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