How the Super Bowl got its name

The term the 'Super Bowl' has a surprising origin: former Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt's children. 

|
David Butler II/USA Today Sports
New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady (right) holds up the Lamar Hunt Trophy as he is interviewed after the AFC Championship Game against the Indianapolis Colts at Gillette Stadium.

While it is now one of the biggest sports events of the year, the Super Bowl originally got its name from a simple children’s toy.

Coined by Lamar Hunt, the Kansas City Chiefs owner, in 1966, the Super Bowl was named after the Super Ball a bouncy ball which was one of the most popular toys in America in the mid-1960s. 

The term “bowl” was already frequently used to refer to the last game in collegiate football seasons and was incorporated into professional football lingo.

Hunt first used the term at a meeting in the summer of 1966, during which he and other football bigwigs were planning the first championship game, which was scheduled to take place the next February between the Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs. “First AFL-NFL World Championship Game,” “final game,” “championship game,” and other names the committee used to refer to the game never caught on.

Finally, Hunt blurted out that it should be called the “Super Bowl.” He later admitted that the inspiration for the term probably came from the Super Ball, the toy his two children were infatuated with at the time.

Although “Super Bowl” was used unofficially by fans and the media alike, the term was not officially adopted until the fourth annual championship in 1970 – the year before the now famous roman numerals were attached. In prior years the championship game was officially called the AFL-NFL Championships or World Football Championships.

Over the years, people challenged the name, and others have questioned the legitimacy of Hunt’s role in coining the term.

In 1969, there was a contest to rebrand the game under a more sophisticated name. “Ultimate Bowl” and “Premier Bowl” were the most well received of the many suggestions, but neither stuck and the championship game has been officially called the Super Bowl ever since.

A 2011 Atlantic Monthly article suggested that the timeline of events is incorrect and that the media started referring to the game as the Super Bowl before Hunt did.

But the football industry chooses to credit Hunt. His achievements have been immortalized in the Professional Football Hall of Fame, which has an exhibit dedicated to Hunt, including replicas of the original “super balls.”

However, Hunt never intended for the name to catch on.

“I guess it is a little corny, but it looked like we’re stuck with it,” Hunt told the AP in January 1970. “Kinda silly, isn’t it? I’m not proud of it. But nobody’s come up with anything better.” 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to How the Super Bowl got its name
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Sports/2015/0129/How-the-Super-Bowl-got-its-name
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe