text: The Roman Empire has fallen. 
   
   The NFL will announce on Wednesday that Super Bowl 50 will be graphically represented using numbers instead of Roman numerals, which the league has been using since Super Bowl V in 1971. 
   
   It's a one-year break, said Jaime Weston, the league's vice president of brand and creative, done simply because the "L" isn't as pleasing to the eye. 
   
   "When we developed the Super Bowl XL logo, that was the first time we looked at the letter 'L,'" Weston said. "Up until that point, we had only worked with X's, V's and I's. And, at that moment, that's when we started to wonder what will happen when we get to 50?" 
   
   Weston said her team has been working on the Super Bowl 50 logo since April 2013, having gone through 73 versions. At some point along the way, it was concluded that having the "L" stand alone didn't work. 
   
   The league has made two logos for the game, which will take place on Feb. 7, 2016 at Levi's Stadium, the new home of the San Francisco 49ers. Both the national and regional logo feature the "50" in gold, serving to call attention to the game's golden anniversary as well as the game's location in the "Golden State." 
   
   The logos also feature the Lombardi Trophy, which has been part of the Super Bowl logo since 2010, when the league went to a more generic, standardized look. The regional logo includes Levi's Stadium as well as notable San Francisco landmarks including the Golden Gate Bridge, Coit Tower and the Transamerica Pyramid. 
   
   "We think what we have makes a very powerful statement for the NFL brand," Weston said. 
   
   As part of the final testing of the logos, including how the gold would play, the league looked at them on Wilson game footballs and even painted a logo on the playing surface at Candlestick Park last week. 
   
   Following the conclusion of Super Bowl XLIX, which will be played at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Arizona on Feb. 1, 2015, the league will embark on a campaign to play up the 50th anniversary. The NFL will go back to using roman numerals for Super Bowl LI in Houston in 2017. 
   
   The league started using the word "Super Bowl" for the third game in 1969. The league filed to trademark the term two months later. ||||| For the first time since the fourth Super Bowl, no Roman numerals will be affixed to the 50th Super Bowl. 
   
   The NFL has released the logo for Super Bowl 50, which will take place in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2016, and the logo uses the Arabic numeral 50, rather than the Roman numeral L. Roman numerals have been used since Super Bowl V. 
   
   Representatives from the host committee had been lobbying the NFL to allow them to ditch the ‘L’ and it appears that they have succeeded. Perhaps some promotional materials for the game will use Super Bowl L, but most will use the official logo with its great big 50. 
   
   The NFL says Roman numerals are not disappearing for good, and the 2017 game will be Super Bowl LI.
target: – Quick, how many Super Bowls have there been? If you don't know, it's probably because this year's game was promoted as Super Bowl XLVIII—and you'd be forgiven if your Roman numeral skills are rusty. Well, good news, my ancient-number-system-challenged friends: In 2016, the NFL is ditching the letters, ABC News reports. The game's logo will simply say "Super Bowl 50." This is a one-time thing, however. "When we developed the Super Bowl XL logo, that was the first time we looked at the letter 'L,'" explains the NFL's VP of branding. "And, at that moment, that's when we started to wonder what will happen when we get to 50?" After much consideration, the brand team decided that "Super Bowl L" would look dumb, and so decided to give us a brief Roman numeral reprieve. It will be the first Super Bowl without Roman numerals since 1970's Super Bowl 4. But 2017's game will be Super Bowl LI, notes NBC Sports.