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There isn’t a single event on the annual sporting calendar that’s surrounded by the amount of hype the Super Bowl is able to generate. It’s certainly earned the right to be called “The Big Game,” but some people out there might not actually know why that nickname became so ubiquitous in the first place.
The NFL has a history stretching back more than a century to its creation in 1920, and while it held its first official championship game in 1933 (the title had previously been handed out based on winning percentage), it wasn’t dubbed the “Super Bowl” until the Packers faced off against the Chiefs in 1967.
At the time, that contest (which ended with Green Bay walking away with the 35-10 victory under legendary head coach Vince Lombardi) was actually referred to as the “AFL–NFL World Championship Game,” a reference to the two separate entities that had engaged in a pretty bitter feud before agreeing to a merger the previous summer.
Former Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt is credited with dreaming up the “Super Bowl” moniker, and it gained enough steam to become officially embraced by the league before the Jets and the Colts faced off in Super Bowl III in 1969—the same year the NFL officially added a hot new asset into its portfolio.
The NFL had been very protective of the Super Bowl trademark that led to brands embracing “The Big Game”
Super Bowl III took place on January 12, 1969, and less than two months after Joe Namath led the Jets to one of the most unexpected upsets of all time, the NFL filed to trademark the “Super Bowl” name for “entertainment services in the nature of football exhibitions” (three years after it initially tried to secure the mark in connection to some sort of board game).
The Super Bowl quickly became one of the most-anticipated (and watched) sporting events in America and subsequently became a very lucrative property for a league that had plenty of incentive to protect its virtually unrivaled cash cow.
Brands who pay millions of dollars to secure one of the highly coveted Super Bowl ad spots and earn the right to call themselves an “Official Partner” of the NFL are permitted to use the name of the game in their marketing efforts, and they obviously wouldn’t be thrilled to learn other entities were able to do the same without forking over any cash.
The NFL has a reputation for being very litigious when it comes to protecting that particular trademark, so while it’s not clear who dreamed up the idea of using “The Big Game” as an alternative, that’s been the go-to for commercial entities who’ve taken care to avoid the league’s wrath over the decades (although they run the risk of getting into legal trouble if they reference the teams involved or even the location).
The NFL actually tried to trademark “The Big Game” in 2006 but backed down after being met with resistance from Stanford and Cal, who’ve used it to refer to a football rivalry that can trace its roots back to the late 1800s.
Most businesses have subsequently erred on the side of caution, although fair use theoretically allows restaurants, sports bars, and similar venues that want to host Super Bowl parties to describe them as such as long as it’s clear they aren’t officially affiliated with the contest.