The NFL has a tradition in which each Super Bowl is met with a Roman numeral system, for example this year Super Bowl 46 is titled Super Bowl XLVI, there’s just one problem with that setup it turns out school aged children are completely confused by the old school numbering system.
It turns out that while many kids know the basics of Roman numbers (X, I, V, etc) they don’t understand larger numbers. Speaking to the Associated Press one mother said Roman numerals “only ever get used for things like copyrights or sporting events. which in my humble opinion harkens even further back to the gladiatorial barbaric nature of things like the Super Bowl.”
Apparently the Roman numeral system is a barbaric act rather than a way to teach children about a historically relevant numbering system, but that is of course just one mothers opinion.
While teachers only educate students about the very basics of the Roman numeral system in school these days websites such as Numericana.com pick up the slack and not surprisingly receive a ton of pageviews around Super Bowl Sunday as fans attempt to figure out which Super Bowl we are currently enjoying.
When asked why the Super Bowl hasn’t changed to a modern name numbering system an NFL historian noted that “It just kind of sounds like an inventory. ‘Inspected by Joe,’” and “Those Roman numerals, they’re almost like trophies.”
In the meantime we are nearing Super Bowl L which has some NFL officials worried that the “L” will translate to the sign for “Loser” when a persons hand is raised to their forehead in the shape of an L such as this:
Do you think the Super Bowl numbering system is archaic and needs to be changed or is it too far set in our minds to forget about?
