Super Bowl, n.
Origin: Formed within English, by derivation. Etymons: super- prefix, bowl n.1
Etymology: < super- prefix + bowl n.1, after Rose Bowl n.2 and similar names of college championship games (compare bowl game n. at bowl n.1 Additions).
The author of quot. 1966 at sense 1 also later stated that the name may have been partly suggested by super ball, the name of a children's toy.
1. Amer. Football. The National Football League championship game, played annually between the champions of the National and the American Football Conferences.
1966 L. Hunt Let. 25 July in M. MacCambridge America's Game
(2004)
xiii. 237
If possible, I believe we should ‘coin a phrase’ for the Championship Game... I have kiddingly called it the ‘Super Bowl’, which obviously can be improved upon.
1979 Arizona Daily Star 1 Apr. h 4/1
One would think the question of desirability of rising profits was of the same genre as who should win the Super Bowl.
1986 ‘W. Tinasky’ Let. 31 Dec.
(1996)
77/1
The team that beats the 49ers will win in the Superbowl.
1996 Economist 20 July 19/1
The number of Americans watching the 1996 Super Bowl..averaged 94m.
1966—1996(Hide quotations)
2. Chiefly U.S. With of or modifying word. In extended use: the foremost event in a specified sport. Also fig.: the most notable or important event or prize in any field.
1967 Washington Post 4 Feb. a5/3
The occasion was what has been called ‘the Super Bowl’ of politico-scientific seminars: the House Science Committee's annual meeting with its distinguished 16-member Panel on Science and Technology.
1970 Pop. Mech. Aug. 113/1
All the statistics about this auto-racing superbowl are too overwhelming to detail.
1975 C. Gonick Inflation or Depression vi. 209
Finally there is Watergate, ‘the superbowl of political scandals’.
1990 Denver Mag. Mar. 6/2
It has been..Reed's job to enlighten the Mile High populace about the benefits of hosting the Super Bowl of college basketball.
2000 L. Crane Ninth Day of Creation 35
Achieving an understanding of how a successful AIDS cure worked might have seemed like the Superbowl of medicine to him.
2011 Daily Tel. 21 July 17/1
About 120 cowboys..will compete in the Bird's Nest stadium in October, in what the producers have billed as ‘the Super Bowl of rodeo’.
1967—2011(Hide quotations)