Yesterday’s discussion was about how the term “bowl game” became part of the football lingo. It started with college football, but the NFL started using the terminology in 1951 when they played the first Pro Bowl game.
The AFL and NFL merged in 1970 and started a championship game called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game. The game went by that name for two years, during which time the final details of the merger were being worked out. By the time of the third “AFL-NFL World Championship Game” the merger was complete and that championship game was re-titled the “Super Bowl.” Actually the game was called “Super Bowl III,” and set the tradition of using Roman numerals for the Super Bowl, rather than the year of the game.
Lamar Hunt, who owned the Kansas City Chiefs and was also the co-founder of the AFL was supposedly the one who came up with the name “Super Bowl,” instead of the “AFL-NFL World Championship Game.” He indicated that he only suggested it as a temporary name until something better came up — but — the name stuck.
According to the NFL, it is illegal to show the Super Bowl on any screen larger than 55 inches. They also do not allow the Super Bowl to be shown at any venue that wouldn’t normally show sporting events, such as churches.
So from their humble beginnings of just “bowl games,” they have now become super….
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