National Football League - Super Bowl XL

NFL Unveils Super Bowl XL Logo in Detroit

By JOHN GALLAGHER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

When you think about Super Bowl XL, the National Football League wants you to think about tradition - both in terms of football and Detroit.

So the logo unveiled by the NFL on Wednesday for the 2006 championship game at Ford Field evokes both themes. The sturdy, simple image stands for 40 years of competition, while the metallic imagery, reminiscent of automotive detailing, could be a hood ornament or name plate on the side of the latest SUV.

The words "Super Bowl" in the logo were designed to mimic an odometer on a dashboard. At a news conference to unveil the logo, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue said preparations for the Detroit Super Bowl were "going extremely well'' and that Detroit's host committee "is really ahead of the curve at this point.''

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who was joined at the press conference by Roger Penske, chairman of the host committee and Bill Ford, a member of the host committee board, promised that the city would not disappoint.

"Detroit understands that the world is coming to our town, and will be ready to get in the game.'' The logo will soon begin turning up everywhere as Detroit and the NFL prepare for the game, still more than 400 days away. Eventually, it will appear on hats, T-shirts, on the sides of sponsor Pepsi's products, and eventually on the field itself during the Feb. 5, 2006 game.

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