Ask Mike: Who coined the term “Super Bowl”
Hey Guys,
The Super Bowl is just a few weeks away, which means its time to brush up on useless football trivia. Like, oh, for example, who coined the term “Super Bowl”?
The Super Bowl wasn’t always the name of the game that decided the NFL champs. Back in the day (“the day” in this case being the 1960s and earlier), the big game was simply called the National Football League Championship Game. It wasn’t until the NFL merged with the AFL that the Super Bowl was born.
Football legend Lamar Hunt is the one who came up with the term. According to legend, Hunt was at home watching his child play with a bouncy ball (aka a super ball). Inspiration struck, and Hunt decided that “Super Bowl” would make a heckuva name for a game.
Of course, he was right. But not everybody thought “Super Bowl” was the way to go. Another football legend, Pete Rozelle, lobbied for a different name. The blog Mental Floss explains that Rozelle, then the commissioner of the league, wanted to call the title game “The AFL-NFL Championship Game.” Yawn. Owners pushed back and suggested it be called “The Big One.” Eventually, the “Super Bowl” came out on top, despite Rozelle’s objections that the term was “corny.”
It’s probably a good thing that Rozelle lost the debate. Today, the Super Bowl is practically a national holiday and one of the most widely viewed sporting events on the planet. Clearly, Lamar Hunt knew a good name when he saw one.
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Lamar Hunt, owner of the Kansas City Chiefs first coined the phrase “Super Bowl,” which replaced Pete
Rozelle’s suggestion to call this two-league playoff
“The Big One.”
After Joe Namath’s stunning AFL Jets win in 1969,
both leagues were combined and renamed Conferences.
I think it may have been the same man who originally named the Super Bowl the “Big One.”
Super Bowl? It should be called “Super Boring”
That’s right, it was Lamar Hunt, who took his Dallas Texans to KC!
You’re all incorrect with those far-fetched stories.
First came the Rose Bowl, a stadium built in Pasadena in 1921 and so named because it looks like a bowl. Then the college championship that is played there became known as the Rose Bowl, and it soon became popular to name many football games “Bowl”. So the NFL decided to call their game “Super Bowl”. Think about Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, and other Bowl games. Nowadays, “Bowl game” just means a big football game.
Funny, two answers being shown and both can’t read the article. Anyway anyone who knows Football knew it was Lamar Hunt, and most of the rest don’t care.
a man who after play in with a super ball had an idea to call it the super bowl
not kidding with this one
Interesting story about how the term came about Mike. I just have an observation: the Super Bowl is not one of the most widely viewed sporting events “on the planet”. Maybe the USA, but the “planet”?? That’s a lot of people watching…hmmm definitely not.
Weird
I remember seeing a show on television that talked about the history of the Suoer Bowl
I remember them saying that the game actually WAS called the “The AFL-NFL Championship Game.”, before it was called the Super Bowl.
Sorry, I had a typo. I wrote”Suoer Bowl” instead of “Super Bowl” On the keyboard, O is next to P. I hit the wrong key.
I found two links that talk about this first AFL-NFL World Championship Game.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475490/
“The first interleague championship, between the AFL champion Kansas City Chiefs and the NFL champion Green Bay Packers.”
“Release Date: 15 January 1967″
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFL_Championship
“From 1966–1969 prior to the AFL-NFL merger, the NFL and the AFL held a “world championship” game. The game was first called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game later renamed the Super Bowl. The Green Bay Packers won the most of these World Championship Games with two victories.”
“1966 – 1969: NFL vs. AFL – The beginning of the Super Bowl era”
“Following the NFL and AFL Championship Games for the 1966 through 1969 seasons, the NFL champion played the AFL champion in Super Bowls I through IV, the only true inter-league championship games in the history of professional football. The first two of these games were known as the AFL-NFL World Championship Game, as the title Super Bowl was not chosen until 1968. Thus the third AFL-NFL matchup was dubbed “Super Bowl III” and the first two matches were retronamed as Super Bowls I and II.”
Super Bowl is not REAL FOOTBALL. If you want to see REAL FOOTBALL look no further than Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup.
idk, but I coined the term the “stupidbowl”
It was actually a Frenchwoman named Bidet who was also the wife of a guy called ARMITAGE SHANKS who coined the phrase after testdriving her new IKEA comode.
From what I have recently heard, I agree with those who say that the game was not originally titled, “Superbowl.” I do remember when the game came into being, (just a little bittie kid). So I was surprised when I heard that this wasn’t the original name. I know that it was refered to as, “The Superbowl,” right from the start. But I guess it must have been more of a nickname for the first two.
It was from this guy called lamar hunt. His children played with a very bouncy ball. So he dicided to name it so he suggested it to his commitee
GO!! PACK!! GO!!
didn’t know this before reading it, nice article.
lamar hunt
The Super Bowl was created as part of the merger agreement between the National Football League (NFL) and its competitive rival, the American Football League (AFL). After its inception in 1920, the NFL fended off several rival leagues before the AFL began play in 1960. The intense competitive war for players and fans led to serious merger talks between the two leagues in 1966. According to NFL Films President Steve Sabol, then NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle wanted to call the game “The Big One”.[8] The common story behind the name of the Super Bowl tells that one of the AFL’s founders and Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt, during the discussion to iron out the details, had jokingly referred to the proposed inter league championship as the “Super Bowl.” [9] Lamar Hunt, who died in December 2006, states he coined the term in the late 1960s after watching his kids play with a Super Ball, the creation of toy manufacturer Wham-O. The small, round ball is currently on display at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. However, more recent scholarship suggests that the name was already extant in sports journalism before the Hunt story took place, and that Hunt only applied official cachet to an unofficial nickname.[10]
The name was consistent with post-season college football games, which had long been known as “bowl games”. Hunt states he only meant the name to be a stopgap until a better one could be found; nevertheless, the name “Super Bowl” became permanent. Tickets for the games played in 1967, 1968, and 1969 were printed with the title “World Championship Game”.[11]
After the NFL’s Green Bay Packers won the first two Super Bowls, some team owners feared for the future of the merger. At the time, many doubted the competitiveness of AFL teams compared with NFL counterparts, though that perception changed with the AFL’s New York Jets’ defeat of the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III in Miami. One year later, the AFL Kansas City Chiefs defeated the NFL Minnesota Vikings 23–7 and won Super Bowl IV in New Orleans, the final World Championship game played between the champions of the two leagues, as the league merger finally took place later that year.
The game is played annually on a Sunday as the final game of the NFL Playoffs. Originally, the game took place in early to mid-January, following a fourteen-game regular season and two rounds of playoffs. Over the years, the date of the Super Bowl has progressed from the second Sunday in January, to the third, then the fourth Sunday in January; the game is currently played on the first Sunday in February, given the current seventeen-week (sixteen games and one bye week) regular season and three rounds of playoffs. Also, February is television’s “sweeps” month and it affords the television network carrying the game an immense opportunity to pad its viewership when negotiating for advertising revenue. The progression of the dates of the Super Bowl was caused by several factors: the expansion of the NFL’s regular season in 1978 from fourteen games to sixteen; the expansion of the pre-Super Bowl playoff field from eight to twelve teams, necessitating the addition of a third round of playoffs (also in 1978)[clarification needed]; the addition of the regular season bye-week in the 1990s; and the decision to start the regular season the week following Labor Day. Former NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle is often considered the mastermind of both the merger and the Super Bowl. His leadership guided the two competitors into the merger agreement and cemented the preeminence of the Super Bowl.[citation needed]
The winning team receives the Vince Lombardi Trophy, named after the coach of the Green Bay Packers, who won the first two Super Bowl games and three of the five preceding NFL championships in 1961, 1962, and 1965. Following his death in September 1970, the trophy was named the Vince Lombardi Trophy, and was first awarded as such to the Baltimore Colts at Super Bowl V in Miami.
I think it makes sense that it is called a ” bowl ” considering college football gives their big games that moniker !
wow kewl stuff i just thought some huge pot head coined it “SUPER BOWL”
It was me, Fransisco Lopez. Who won the Super Bowl?
Lamar Hunt after see his grand daughter playing with a “super-ball” while he was trying to think of a better name than AFL-NFL Championship game. Like previous poster indicated. He said super-ball and thought of all the College Bowl Games and the Stadiums they were played in IE Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl etc. SO it dawned on him that since this was the ultimate American Football Championship Game that it should be called “The Super Bowl”. It really is that simple!!
by the way-to be really accurate- Super Bowl Five (V) was the first Super Bowl to have a number after it. If you doubt me-just go on any website that archives pictures of past Super Bowl Tickets. Then you’ll know for sure which Super Bowl was the first with a number!
Lamar Hunt jokingly suggested super bowl after watching his kids play with this toy called the super ball.
I was going to guess it was McDonald’s attempt to enter the cereal market. You know, supersize.
Well, see. When I was a young child, and my immigrant parents never tought me about football, I came up with the Idea of playing a game with 100 yards and gameplay exactly like football. I told my cousin about naming the last game the “Super Bowl…” but he thought I was crazy. Too bad I didn’t live before football was first invented…
Lamart Hunt (August 2, 1932 – Dec 13, 2006). Former owner of the Kansas City Cheifs. Since his death in 2006, his son Clark Hunt owns the franchise.
BOWL GAME ISN’T SYNONYMOUS WITH “BIG GAME”, BOWL GAME MEANS IT IS PLAYED IN A BOWL STADIUM THAT IS SHAPED LIKE A BOWL. THE MOST FAMOUS BOWL STADIUM IS THE ROSE BOWL WHERE EVERY NEW YEARS DAY A COLLEGE BOWL GAME IS PLAYED AS THE CULMINATION OF TWO CONFERENCE CHAMPIONS OF DIFFERENT NCAA CONFERENCES. HOWEVER, USC AND UCLA AS WELL AS SOME SPECIAL NCAA FOOTBALL GAMES PLAY MANY GAMES IN THE ROSE BOWL DURING THE REGULAR SEASON, YET THESE GAMES ARE NOT EACH CALLED THE ROSE BOWL GAME. LIKEWISE THE ORANGE BOWL WAS THE HOME OF THE MIAMI DOLPHINS(NFL{AFC}) AND MIAMI HURRICANES(NCAA) DURING THEIR REGULAR SEASONS AS WELL AS THE SITE OF MANY SUPER BOWLS OVER THE YEARS AND EACH JANUARY 1ST THERE WAS LIKE THE ROSE BOWL, AN NCAA FOOTBALL GAME PLAYED IN THE ORANGE BOWL AND THIS GAME ONLY WAS CALLED THE ORANGE BOWL GAME. .THE COTTON BOWL WAS A STADIUM LOCATED IN DALLAS TEXAS WHERE EVERY JAN 1ST THEY HAD A GAME CALLED THE COTTON BOWL. SEVERAL NCAA TEXAS COLLEGES PLAY THEIR REGULAR SEASON GAMES THEIR ALSO. THESE ARE 3 OF THE MOST FAMOUS BOWL STADIUMS, ONE,THE ORANGE BOWL, WHICH HAS SINCE BEEN RAZED BECAUSE IT WAS OLD AND DECREPIT. MANY OTHER GAMES ARE LIKEWISE PLAYED IN OTHER BOWL STADIUMS THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY. HOWEVER, THE NFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME AND THE AFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME ARE REALLY “BIG GAMES”(WINNERS GO TO THE SUPER BOWL)IN THE NFL, YET THESE GAMES WERE NOT CALLED THE NFC CHAMPIONSHIP BOWL GAME OR AFC CHAMPIONSHIP BOWL GAME WHETHER IT’S PLAYED IN A BOWL STADIUM OR NOT.
THE SUPER BOWL IS NOT NECESSARILY PLAYED IN A BOWL STADIUM WHICH MAKES IT AN ODDITY SINCE ALL OTHER BOWL GAMES ARE ACTUALLY PLAYED IN A BOWL STADIUM WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED DEFUNCT ORANGE BOWL STADIUM WHICH DESTROYED. THE ORANGE BOWL JUST TO CONFUSE EVERYONE INCLUDING MYSELF IS NOW PLAYED IN DOLPHIN STADIUM(A NON-BOWL SHAPED STADIUM). ANY QUESTIONS?
The steelers will win it all…..let’s go Mike Tomlin