If you like things to stay consistent, the National Football League’s announcement on Wednesday will probably drive you nuts. The league announced today that it will be ditching Roman Numerals for Super Bowl 50 in San Francisco. However, Super Bowl 51 will still be styled as Super Bowl LI.
The NFL said that using the Arabic Numerals will be one-time only. Apparently, “Super Bowl L” isn’t as visually pleasing as “Super Bowl 50,” so this will be the first time in over 40 years that the official game logo won’t use the Roman Numeral version.
“When we developed the Super Bowl XL logo, that was the first time we looked at the letter L,” Jaime Weston, NFL vice president of brand and creative, 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?”
They eventually decided to drop the “L.” So, the official Super Bowl 50 logo features the Lombardi Trophy between the gold-colored “5” and “0.” This is in reference to the fact that the game is being held in the Golden State (California) and is celebrating its golden anniversary. A regional logo that features San Francisco landmarks was unveiled as well.
image via Facebook from NFL
Super Bowl 50 is slated for Feb. 7, 2016 at the new home of the 49ers, Levi’s Stadium. Super Bowl LI will take place in Houston and the 2018 game will be hosted by Minneapolis.
“We think what we have makes a very powerful statement for the NFL brand,” Weston told ESPN of the Super Bowl 50 logo.