The Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers will meet in the 54th edition of the Super Bowl on Sunday night in Miami, but if you’re clicking on this, you’re probably wondering what the deal was with the whole Super Bowl LIV thing and why we’re using Roman numerals in the first place.
No problem! We’re here to help! Let’s break it all down, from the numbers themselves to the history of the NFL using Roman numerals in its championship game (also, if you need to know why it’s called the Super Bowl in the first place, we have that too).
What number is LIV?
54. L is 50, V is five, and I is one, but it’s listed as “LIV” because “IV” is read as one less than five.
So why does the NFL use Roman numerals at all?
It would be confusing if you thought about Sunday’s game as Super Bowl 2020 when it’s deciding the 2019 championship. So this is an easier way to do it.
And the history? From NBC Sports:
AFL and Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt proposed using Roman numerals for each Super Bowl to add pomp and gravitas to the game. … Super Bowl V was the first to use Roman numerals. They were retroactively added to the Super Bowl II to IV logos.
