The Super Bowl’s Roman Numerals

[The Huntsman]

Everybody loves the Super Bowl. It seems that it gets bigger and bigger each year. But not everybody likes how the game uses roman numerals. With Super Bowl L being only a few years away, and roman numerology falling out of favor as the years go on, some are suggesting that the game use regular numerical digits instead. Do you think that’s a good idea or a bad idea? Would the game be any less significant without the roman numbers?

[Shawn Hopkins]

I think doing away with them would be dumb. It's our modern gladiatorial bloodsport, the Roman Numerals just fit.

[Matt Hazuda]

Plus it allows them to do stupid marketing stunts for even more payouts when it's in an entertaining pattern of some sort (Superbowl XXX anyone?)

The Wall Street Journal did have an article about the L problem last year though.

The NFL is four years away from its 50th Super Bowl, which means it is already trying to plan around a peculiar self-inflicted marketing nuisance: How can the world's most powerful sports league get around putting a big, fat "L" on hundreds of thousands of souvenir T-shirts?

But come 2016, the Roman numeral for Super Bowl L happens to be the lone letter that most connotes losing.

[Aquadementia]

I expect them to stay traditional and stick with Roman numerals.
L may be a special case.
Just the one letter, and it's not an X. It may look a little off to some people. I think the L would look good wherever the number is bigger then the rest of the lettering.
I could see them splitting the difference and using 50 on many items. 50 looks good, but if it's 49, 51, 52 I think IL, LI and LII are better.

But then I think words with Greek or Latin roots can be fun.

Also, you don't want any confusion with jersey numbers. I guess we'd be getting into the line men years.

[Mandouga]

I don't mean to nitpick, but XLIX is 49...

[Dantheman]

This kind of reminds me of that bit from The Simpsons where a teacher tells their kids why it's still important to know their Roman numerals.

"Kids, if you don't learn your Roman numerals, you won't figure out which year a motion picture was copyrighted in."

[Peter Paltridge]

Gah, it should not be this hard to avoid Super Bowl ad spoilers, but those idiot companies have posted them everywhere! Don't they realize they're wasting their money if they leave no surprises?

[Aquadementia]

I don't mean to nitpick, but XLIX is 49...

No, nothing wrong with being right.
I bet if I was using roman numerals all the time I'd experiment with IL though. It wasn't all that long ago that I was rewriting the alphabet. I also like rearranging my keyboard layout.

This kind of reminds me of that bit from The Simpsons where a teacher tells their kids why it's still important to know their Roman numerals.

"Kids, if you don't learn your Roman numerals, you won't figure out which year a motion picture was copyrighted in."

Do they even try to teach kids that?