Why Is It Called the Super Bowl?
- Antal Bokor
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
The story of how a 98-cent toy and a Yale architect accidentally named the world's biggest sporting event.
The MLB has “The World Series.” Professional Golf has “The Masters.” And the NFL has “The Super Bowl.”
But why "Bowl"? And why "Super"?
The origin of the name is a lot more complicated—and accidental—than the corporate sheen of the event suggests. It is the tale of two disparate concepts colliding to create the biggest annual sporting event in the United States, an economic juggernaut generating over $600 million in ad revenue alone. It is such a massive cultural force that the commercials and halftime performers are now just as much a part of the discourse as the game itself.
Here is how a soup-eating dish and a children's toy gave us the name.
Part 1: The Architecture (Why "Bowl"?)
Before 1914, the term “bowl” wasn’t associated with sporting events at all. Back then, football was played in “stadiums” and “fields.”
That changed when Yale University built a massive new home for their football team. This structure was unusual; instead of building up like a traditional grandstand, they dug into the ground. The result was a sunken, elliptical amphitheater that looked exactly like a massive soup crockery. They literally named it The Yale Bowl. It was an architectural marvel and the first of its kind.
Not to be outdone, organizers of the Tournament of Roses in Pasadena wanted a stadium as grand as Yale’s to host their annual East-West football game. The architect they hired, Myron Hunt, modeled his design directly after the Yale structure. When it opened in 1923, they naturally named it The Rose Bowl.
Soon, fans started to refer to the game itself as “The Rose Bowl,” transferring the name from the building to the event. Pasadena began bringing in massive tourist dollars, so other cities copied the moniker to brand their own winter festivals. Miami created the Orange Bowl (1935), New Orleans the Sugar Bowl (1935), and Dallas the Cotton Bowl (1937).
The kicker? None of these later "bowls" were actually held in bowl-shaped stadiums. The term had mutated from an architectural classification into a synonym for "Major Postseason Football Game."
Part 2: The Toy (Why "Super"?)
So we have the "Bowl." But why is it "Super"?
That comes down to a distracted dad named Lamar Hunt.
Hunt was the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs and the founder of the AFL. In 1966, when the NFL and AFL merged, they needed a name for the final game between the two league champions. NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle—normally a marketing genius—stumbled here. He insisted on calling it "The AFL-NFL World Championship Game."
From the media to the fans, everyone hated it. It was a mouthful. It lacked the punch of "The World Series."
During planning meetings, Hunt had been watching his children play with a specific Wham-O toy that was a craze at the time: the Super Ball.
In a frantic letter to Rozelle, Hunt wrote: “I have jokingly called it the ‘Super Bowl,’ which obviously can be improved upon.” He had phonetically combined the toy his kids loved (Super Ball) with the prestige of college football (Bowl Games).
At first, the NFL brass thought “Super” was too colloquial and undignified. They brainstormed alternatives like “The Big One” and “The Merger Bowl,” but nothing stuck. The press, however, loved Hunt's placeholder. It was short, punchy, and headline-ready.
By the time the game was played, the "World Championship" name was officially on the tickets, but everyone was saying "Super Bowl." The league finally gave in, and by the third game in 1969, the name "Super Bowl" was printed on the program.
The Legacy
To add a final touch of gravity to a name born from a rubber ball, Lamar Hunt also advocated for the use of Roman numerals starting with Super Bowl V. He felt it gave the game a sense of dignity and historic weight—and clarified the confusion of a championship played in the year after the season concludes.
So when you watch the confetti fall this Sunday, remember: you aren't watching a "World Championship." You're watching a tribute to a 1914 architectural experiment and a 98-cent rubber ball.