11 Things You Missed On The Internet | 01.31.24

Why are Super Bowl logos so lame now?

Author

Brandon Wenerd
January 31, 2024


Ah, the 90s - a time when the biggest decision of the day was between Dunkaroos or Gushers and the biggest worry was whether your Tamagotchi would survive the school day.

Those were the days, my newsletter friends, when Super Bowl logos were more than just a shiny Lombardi trophy on a bland background with some ambiguous colors mixed in that inspire false conspiracy theories; they were a kaleidoscope of in-your-face hues and shades, a smorgasbord of designs that actually dared to be different. It gave the game an identity uniquely tied to the space and time the game was played in. Each one was like a little time capsule, capturing the essence of its era and location.

Remember the Super Bowl XXX logo? That was a personal favorite of mine.

I remember going with my dad to the grocery store one Friday night in January before the Big Game, discovering a shiny special edition Wheaties box on the shelf with Bart Starr, Terry Bradshaw, and Troy Aikman on the box, paying tribute to three decades of Super Bowls.

While eating those Wheaties from that shopping trip, I was mesmerized by the 30 colorful Super Bowl logos to date on the box. After I finished it, I kept the box for years like a prized sports memorabilia treasure, thinking that maybe it’d be worth some serious money some day.

Super Bowl XXX was played at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Dallas Cowboys. Diana Ross performed at halftime, performing a 13.5-minute show of Motown hits.

That Super Bowl logo was a masterpiece, dripping with Southwestern flair, practically smelling of Arizona's deserts and howling coyotes. That was one year after the NBA played the 1995 NBA All-Star Game in Phoenix, inspiring what many consider the most iconic NBA All-Star jerseys of all time.

That Super Bowl XXX logo was the kind of logo that made you want to frame it and hang it on your wall, not just slap it on a coffee mug and call it a day. It was a logo that looked great on a souvenir hat or t-shirt.

The Super Bowl logos of late? Pfft. They're about as exciting as an oil company logo on a gas pump. It has the same aesthetic joy as a dentist office. What happened to the character? The pizzazz? The sense of place? It's as if the powers-that-be decided that with global dominance of the No Fun League comes a mandatory blandness policy.

It’s just another thing monoculture has taken from us.

When you really think about it, the 90s were a buffet of unique shared experiences. The red plastic Pizza Hut cups. The Capri Sun. The mail-order Columbia House catalogs where you could order 12 CDs for a penny. The fish tanks in Walmart, as one Redditor recently noted. As a child of the 90s and a big fan of pet fish, I always loved browsing that part of the store, tucked in the corner by the garden section and near the sporting goods, with my dad.

The media environment back then felt special, unlike today's attention economy where countless screens and algorithms vie for our eyeballs. Now, we're spoon-fed a homogenized cultural stew, leaving us yearning for the days when individuality was celebrated, not smothered. The internet, smartphones, and social media have their claws in our psyche, a perfect data-driven system that triggers our dopamine receptors and pre-conditions us to consume something without the joy of real-world discovery.

So, as I lace up my newly-acquired Jordan 5 Alternate Bel-Airs, inspired by Will Smith’s colorful outfits in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, I can't help but feel a twinge of sadness for those who'll never know the joy of living through the 90s, when loud, brash logos made sense. As cool as it is to carry around a supercomputer in my pocket all day, it also rocked to experience a digital age without so much inter-connectivity.

It was a time when life felt vibrant, and even the smallest things, like a trip to Walmart to see the fish or the grocery store to pick out a cereal box with a list of badass Super Bowl logos on the side, could be an adventure.

Here's to hoping that one day, we'll find our way back to that technicolor world, where Super Bowl logos are more than just a trophy and a date, but a testament to the times.

Rant over. What are your thoughts? Am I remembering this correctly? Do you have a favorite Super Bowl logo? Or am I just a madman stuck in the past? Leave a comment below if you’re on the site or e-mail me: [email protected].

Have a great Wednesday. See you back here on Friday.

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