Super Bowl Logos

There are some folks who don't like Roger Goodell.  I don't entirely get why people dislike him so much.  Bill Simmons hates Goodell.  He says that the NFL didn't care about issues of player safety, but then he gets mad at Goodell for doing something about the Saints' bounty program.  How does that make sense?  Anyway, there is one thing that Goodell did that I absolutely hate with a passion:  standardized Super Bowl logos.  I'm not kidding.  I feel very strongly about this.  Check out this picture of all the pre-standardization logos:

To be sure, there were some bad ones.  But at least they weren't all bland and generic like the Super Bowl logos Goodell has given us.  Quick googling turned up a logo that would have been a million times better for Super Bowl XLVII than the generic grey logo:

The first Super Bowl I ever watched was Super Bowl XXV.  I'm going to give you my five worst and five best Super Bowl logos from Super Bowl XXV to Super Bowl XLIV.  Let's start with the five worst:

5.  Super Bowl XL.  The only thing good about this logo is that it's red, white, and blue.  It's pretty bland.  There's something lacking.  Give me some kind of artwork rather than just the words "Super Bowl" and the Roman numerals.

4.  Super Bowl XXIX.  The only thing this logo has going for it is the sort of sun-looking thing at the top.  Too many straight lines.

3.  Super Bowl XXXIV.  Pretty bland.  And why is the third X bigger than the other two?

2.  Super Bowl XLII.  Great Super Bowl, crappy logo.  What is that supposed to be?

1.  Super Bowl XLIV.  Unlike Super Bowl XLII, I get what this is supposed to be, but it's just bad.  The game was in Miami.  Give me the beach and/or the sun in the logo somehow.  That logo had no connection to the city where the game was held.

In Goodell's defense, the Super Bowl logos were getting pretty bad.  I didn't really like the logos for Super Bowl XLI or Super Bowl XLIII either.  But I'd still take a bad logo that was unique for each game over Goodell's generic standardized logos.

And now for the best logos from the Super Bowls I've watched:

5.  Super Bowl XXV.  I had four that I really liked and I needed a fifth.  This makes the list for not being bad, for being red, white, and blue, for being from the first Super Bowl I watched, and for being the logo for one of the best Super Bowls ever.

4.  Super Bowl XXX.  It has a very Arizona feel to it.  Very appropriate for a Super Bowl played in Tempe.

3.  Super Bowl XXXVIII.  This is the Super Bowl that has the longest Roman numeral attached to it.  All those letters could have been a problem for designing a logo, but it was done very well.  The planet is also very unique for a Super Bowl logo and appropriate for Houston.

2.  Super Bowl XXVII.  I've talked before about how I want to get to every Major League Baseball Stadium, but I don't feel the need to get to every football stadium or every basketball arena.  There are only two football stadiums that I haven't been to yet that I would make a point of visiting.  One is Lambeau Field.  The other is the Rose Bowl.  This is the perfect logo for a Super Bowl played in the Rose Bowl.  It was also the last Super Bowl played in the Rose Bowl.  They should go back there, but it won't happen because these days they won't put a Super Bowl in a stadium that doesn't have any NFL team (the Rose Bowl never had an NFL team, but it hosted five Super Bowls).

1.  Super Bowl XXXVI.  If you know me well, this one was pretty obvious.