February 3, 2012

"The NFL Has an 'L' of a Problem."

In 2016, it will be Super Bowl L... unless they give up the Roman numerals thing.

The Roman numerals got hard to read quite a while ago, but getting to the simple "L" for 50 is going to look weirder than any of the elaborate configurations of letters we've had to puzzle over — or ignore — in recent years.

What do you want to see in 2016?
Super Bowl L
Super Bowl 50
  
pollcode.com free polls 

59 comments:

BarrySanders20 said...

What have the Romans ever done for US?

Scott M said...

The official NFL logo will most likely be a 50, or they may not call it Superbowl Fifty at all in their presentation, but rather the 50th Anniversary or something similar. On the other hand, a lot of the more clever advertising and marketing will use "L" to great effect.

Scott M said...

What have the Romans ever done for US?

You mean, apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health?

Unknown said...

Well 51 won't be great either, but 59 will be worse.

danh said...

Rockstar games has anticipated a similar problem with an upcoming game. The next "Grand Theft Auto" game will feature a "V" with "five" superimposed in an obvious way.

Portia said...

By them maybe no one will be watching. The NFL is too much about image and nothing about substance.

F said...

How about C/2 ?

TML said...

Super Bowl 110010 is my choice.

Curious George said...

I think they will try to be "urban hip" and go with "Super Bowl Fitty"

wv: chshypk

Wasn't that the last name of Madison's former Mayor?

Sorun said...

L. We'll get used to it. I have faith.

Nomennovum said...

Super Bowl XLX!

David said...

FiveZero

edutcher said...

It was pretentious when it was II. It only gets worse with time.

PS Good one, Dad.

PPS Great one, F.

SteveR said...

I don't pay attention to something like that. Its a pretentious marketing device. I might remember or care about a particular game looking back based on the teams involved (e.g. SF vs CINN) but not so much the year it occurred and not in any way the Roman number.

davis,br said...

...haven't watched the SB in years. Hmm, make that decades. So I shouldn't care ...but FTW:

Super Bowl Five-O

...and hold it in Honolulu.

DADvocate said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
davis,br said...

...book 'em, Danno

DADvocate said...

I'm waiting for 2025 and Super Bowl LIX.

tim maguire said...

I had to go read the article to find out the worry is L = Loser. I thought the problem was L = Lesbian.

Carol said...

How about we just give up the super bowl too while we're at it.

Patrick said...

davisbr - I like that idea. Very good.

I think 59, or anticipation of 59 will cause the change at 50. I'd still like it with roman numerals, but it won't last.

Amexpat said...

What percentage of the population knows the Roman numeral "L"? The NFL needs to get with the times and go with Arabic numerals.

Terry said...

Superbowl XXXXX.
There's no law that says we have to use Roman numerals the correct way. I bet many Romans didn't know about "L" and used "XXXXX" instead of "L".

Jim said...

In keeping with the Superbowl musical tradition of appropriating outdated acts and stale, superseded pop culture, I would suggest they go with Superbowl Fiddy. This hip hop term for "fifty" is current now but will be a bit stale by then, but that won't stop the Superbowl's mainstay customers, aging white corporate types, from feeling wonderfully multicultural, young and trendy when they tell their friends, "Ima gon' Superbowl Fiddy, yo."

gerry said...

@F: C/2

Shouldn't that be C/II?

@Nomennovum: Great one!

@Dad: HEH!

Terry said...

Dadvocate's onto something. Creata a product. Name it "LIV". In four years you get beaucoup free advertising from Superbowl LIV.

Kevin said...

Was a big fan of Roman numerals for Super Bowl 40. Allowed people in the marketing department to say, "It's a game so big, it's Extra Large!"

40 = XL.

gerry said...

How about Superbowl 32H?

Or Superbowl XXXIIH?

Or Superbowl (space)?

Steven said...

There was a period of X or XV years where I didn't watch the Super Bowl at all. But for the last VII or VIII years now I have really enjoyed watching it with my III kids.

Perhaps when Super Bowl C rolls around Larry King can do a commercial for it. He'll probably still be alive.

Triangle Man said...

I was going to suggest binary like @TML, or hexadecimal

Super Bowl 0x32

No way that could be confusing right?

MadisonMan said...

The NF50 has a problem?

LordSomber said...

Gotta feeling '51 is gonna be a good year.

Bender said...

What do you want to see in 2016?

Good grief. This isn't brain surgery or rocket science. But it does fit in quite well with the modern world of oh-so-smart people who are so brilliant as to be confounded at the most obvious things and to make complex what is exceedingly simple.

There is only one right answer for 2016 --

Super Bowl 2016

Jose_K said...

You mean, apart from the sanitation, medicine, education not to mention law and the basics of US Constitution and 60% of english words

Bruce Hayden said...

Super Bowl 0x32

Let's try binary: 0110010.
Or, some other great bases - how about 20 Base 25? But, then we can view L as being base 50, which should do us for the next 40 or so years (until we have to start maybe doing XC for SB 90), which is fine for most of us, because I doubt if I will still be around then.

Jose_K said...

pitty, I did not watch SB XXX

damikesc said...

Keep it L. Make sure Buffalo and Minnesota play in it.

LordSomber said...

Super Bowl Y2K+15

tim maguire said...

Steven said...Perhaps when Super Bowl C rolls around Larry King can do a commercial for it. He'll probably still be alive.

And his wife will probably be pregnant.

Joe Schmoe said...

Superbowl XXXXX

That should have one hell of a halftime show.

Anonymous said...

I'm waiting for Super Bowl LVI (56) in ten years as it will feature a halftime show of nothing but Elvis impersonators ("Elvi" being the plural of "Elvis"), or at least have the Patriots back in it, as their current logo looks like they're supposed to be the Flying Elvi.

This year (XLVI) is just for former Elvis impersonators. (Hmmm... could that be considered a slam on Madonna?)

rehajm said...

What have the Romans ever done for US?

The aqueduct?

Alex said...

The Romans also gave us orgies, the vomitarium, roasted peasant on a stick and Nero fiddling while the slums burned.

Joaquin said...

I always thought Super Bowl XL (extra large) was the best!

Writ Small said...

Depends. If the Cowboys are in next year's Super Bowl, I'd prefer they go to L.

Cincinnatus said...

SuperBowl XXXXX

Cedarford said...

I'd hire Newt Gingrich, who will be back working as an influence peddlar in the private sector and tossing out Big, Bold Ideas to sell books on the side with Callista or new wife number IV, to come up with a suitably Grandiose monniker.

Perhaps the "Half Century of Greatness Game".

Reinvent the whole name. As historian, Newt can lecture that "Bowl" has 19th century roots and Nietzsche, also in the 19th century, took "super" from a scientific term to throwing it on aspects of man and society as a word popularizer.

No more super, no more "bowl". Toilets and kitchens have "bowls". The players aren't bowlers.

"The Game That Starts the American Renaissance"
Because the Game is cosmically, profoundly, fundamentally important to Who We Are!

Cedarford said...

I'd hire Newt Gingrich, who will be back working as an influence peddlar in the private sector and tossing out Big, Bold Ideas to sell books on the side with Callista or new wife number IV, to come up with a suitably Grandiose monniker.

Perhaps the "Half Century of Greatness Game".

Reinvent the whole name. As historian, Newt can lecture that "Bowl" has 19th century roots and Nietzsche, also in the 19th century, took "super" from a scientific term to throwing it on aspects of man and society as a word popularizer.

No more super, no more "bowl". Toilets and kitchens have "bowls". The players aren't bowlers.

"The Game That Starts the American Renaissance"
Because the Game is cosmically, profoundly, fundamentally important to Who We Are!

Cedarford said...

Sorry about the double post.

If, instead of Newt, we went with an out of office Barack or some other profound liberal thinker we could have a Game that celebrates a victim du jour, or past victim person or group, because victimhood and Oprahfication means you simply cannot go overboard in showing "caring and empathy" for victims.


1. The Breast Cancer Awareness Bowl.
2. Yet Another Needed Event For the Hero Victim Families of 9/11 and Katrina.
3. Shrug and go for what liberals and Dem constituency groups really want - rename it "The Martin Luther King Bowl" - and hold it in a depressed and crime ridden city where half the schools, housing projects, and streets have "MLK" names or associations.

Freeman Hunt said...

It will have to be a really impressive L. It should be formed of a bald equal which will descend from the top right corner of the screen to alight next to SUPER BOWL, don a football uniform, position itself as though about to pitch to a quarterback (also presumably avian), but then instead morph into an L that looks as though it's made of metal. After the viewer has time to read SUPER BOWL [impressive] L, the whole thing will explode into a shower of metallic, patriotic spangles.

DCS said...

People in America don't know wtf any Roman numeral means, so why worry about L? If it had been a problem the NFL would have stopped at Superbowl IV.

Joe Schmoe said...

Freeman, that would be one L of a display (ba-dum-dum).

I just learned that 49 will be XLIX. I thought it might IL, which would be pretty cool except Chicago would want to host it. I like Chicago, but I don't like its mayor or its current, most famous citizen splitting time betwixt Chitown and DC.

Skyler said...

I thought the year 2000 would see the end of roman numerals used for the year movies are made, but the year came and went using MM and no one complained.

Michael McNeil said...

I think they should show the ‘L’ lower case. That'll confuse people!

Michael McNeil said...

What have the Romans ever done for US?

Good (and funny!) answers earlier, folks (and thanks for the Monty Python laugh), but more seriously, there is one thing the Romans did that's particularly appropriate for America and Americans: Stoicism-inspired (not Christian inspired) Roman jurists — and not the U.S. founding fathers — invented the legal maxim that “All men are equal.”

Peter Hoh said...

Super Bowl, Golden Jubilee edition.

J.R. said...

How about "Super Bowl 2016". If the NFL used this, we would all be able to identify a game when it is mentioned.

Simon said...

I'm in favor of the traditional numerals. Roll on Superbowl quinquaginta!

Simon said...

I'm in favor of the traditional numerals. Roll on Superbowl quinquaginta!