Super Bowl LX will kick off on Sunday evening, featuring the New England Patriots taking on the Seattle Seahawks. This annual event is one of the most-watched television programs, with an audience that spans far beyond sports fans. Some may be wondering about the meaning behind the Roman numerals traditionally used in the title of the NFL’s big game.
What Do the Roman Numerals Represent in the Super Bowl and What Does LX Mean?
The Super Bowl traditionally uses Roman numerals each year to keep count of the annual championship game between the winners of the NFC and AFC. They have been used to identify all but one of them in NFL history, with 50 being the only exception.
L would have been the Roman numeral representation of that one, but the league instead opted against it. The other 59 years used Roman numerals, making LX the 60th Super Bowl in league history.
The L stands for 50, and the X counts for ten, so when added together, LX has a Roman numeral value of 60, representing the 60th time the game will be played. The other two symbols that have appeared in the game’s title are I, which counts as one, and V, which indicates five.
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Calculating the value of Roman numerals generally requires simply adding all of the letters together by their corresponding numerical value. This is always the case when they are placed in descending numerical value, as with LX (50 + 10 = 60).
The exception is when a lower-valued letter precedes a larger one; then the value would be subtracted from the Roman numeral immediately following it. For example, XL would equal 40 (50-10), rather than 60, so the order in which they are placed matters. Another example is that VI (5+1) is 6 and IV (5-1) is 4.
Multiples can also be used, such as XX equaling 20 and III equaling 3. Last year’s Super Bowl LIX was the 59th, and next year’s 61st will use LXI to represent it. The NFL reportedly decided to use this system to avoid confusion, with years representing the game instead. This is mostly due to the Super Bowl being played in the calendar year after the listed year for the season that it’s crowning a champion of.
This means that Super Bowl LX will be played in 2026 to determine the overall champion of the 2025 NFL season. It will be either the Patriots or Seahawks, with Drake Maye and Sam Darnold both appearing in their first. They both exceeded their expectations this season on their way to being ranked in the top 13 of PFSN’s Impact Rankings among all quarterbacks.
