The Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers will be playing for the Lombardi trophy in a few days on Super Bowl LVIII, the 58th championship game in NFL history.

Instead of focusing on who'll have the better game between Travis Kelce and George Kittle or the quarterback matchup between Brock Purdy and Patrick Mahomes, let's step outside the confines of the gridiron for a quick moment.

As the only sport in Northern America that doesn't use numbers to represent the number of years the league has crowned a champion, has it ever popped into your mind why the NFL uses Roman numerals (Super Bowl LVIII) instead of simply saying Super Bowl 58?

Why does the NFL use Roman numerals for the Super Bowl?

Super Bowl LVIII logo with TV in the background and logos of Nickelodeon, CBS, and Paramount+.

The Roman numerals to represent the Super Bowl have become one of the longest traditions in sports. The only time the NFL didn't use Roman numerals in a graphic was on its golden anniversary of Super Bowl 50. After all, seeing an ad for Super Bowl L wouldn't really bode well for the league and its players.

If you were expecting a long, prudent reason as to why the NFL decided to put Roman numerals for its biggest game of the season, prepare to be surprised. The only reason why the NFL introduced this unique system was to avoid any confusion.

According to the NFL’s postseason media guide, the number system was put in place to avoid any confusion that may occur since the championship game is played the year following a chronologically recorded season. In other words, it's so that Super Bowl LVIII would still be called the championship for the 2023 season despite the game taking place in 2024.

The idea was first introduced by former Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt in 1971 in Super Bowl V when the Baltimore Colts defeated the Dallas Cowboys 16 to 13.

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Guide to naming future Big Games

If you aren't super familiar with Roman numerals, we can't blame you. This number system is barely used in almost every part of the world. For the basics, here are the symbols for numbers one through 10:

1: I
2: II
3: III
4: IV
5: V
6: VI
7: VII
8: VIII
9: IX
10: X

This is when it gets tricky. For multiples of 10 under 50 (20,30,40) you use the number of Xs for that number by dividing it by 10. So, for Super Bowl 34, the Roman numerals are XXXIV.

When the number gets to 50, L becomes the first numeral. Hence why this year's Super Bowl logo is LVIII.

The rules will once again only change once you hit 100, 500, and 1000. C is 100, D is 500, and M is 1,000.