The Super Bowl has been around since 1967, when the Green Bay Packers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in Los Angeles. Originally, the game was officially called the “AFL – NFL World Championship Game”. That wasn’t exactly catchy, and the 1967 game has been retroactively referred to as Super Bowl I. So why is it called the Super Bowl? To answer that, we have to go back to Pasadena’s Tournament of Roses. Let’s go.

The football game we now call the Rose Bowl has been played in Pasadena, California since 1902. A new stadium was built for the Tournament of Roses in 1923 and named Rose Bowl Stadium because… it was shaped like a bowl. I’m not kidding, that’s literally where that term comes from. Because of the Rose Bowl’s popularity, more college ‘bowl’ games were added like the Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Cotton Bowl, and many more.

By the time the AFL/NFL championship game came about, any major football game in America was referred to as a ‘bowl’. Now, since the AFL playing against the NFL would seem to be the largest game of the year, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see why it’s called the Super Bowl. However, there is actually a story behind it.

Back in the 60’s, a guy named Lamar Hunt owned the Chiefs (his son is owner now) and he was big on the idea of his AFL playing against the NFL. In 1964, the rubber ball toy known as a Super Ball was invented and kids all over America had them, including Lamar’s. You see where this is going. I can imagine that the original paperwork was titled something like “Yet To Be Named AFL/NFL Bowl Game” and Larry privately referred to it as the Super Bowl (like Super Ball, get it).

As completely obvious of a name as it seems to us today, no one wanted to call it that initially. But Lamar’s moniker had leaked to the press, and soon media all over the country was calling the big game the Super Bowl, despite its official name being much more wordy. That’s what it is called to this day, and now you know why.

Sunday, February 13th 2022 is the 56th Super Bowl. It is the most watched television event in the U.S., and second only to soccer globally. Americans eat more food on Super Bowl Sunday than any other day besides Thanksgiving and advertising is worth a whole lot of money.