What is behind the Super Bowl logo conspiracy?

(NEXSTAR) — For years, there has been a subset of football fans that claims the NFL is scripted. They even claim to collect “proof” outcomes are rigged, from bad referee calls or player gaffes that lead to certain results.

But the latest conspiracy claim is based on a piece of marketing from the NFL itself. Since Super Bowl LVI, the NFL added color to the big game logo, and those colors have conveniently matched up with the two teams that end up playing in the championship.

The Super Bowl LVI logo was painted orange and yellow, which just happen to be the main colors for the Cincinnati Bengals and the Los Angeles Rams, respectively, who played at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles that season.

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As if one time wasn’t enough, the following year, the Super Bowl LVII logo was red and green. Playing in the game were the Kansas City Chiefs (red) and Philadelphia Eagles (green).

In 2024, the No. 1 seeds and odds-on favorites to meet in Super Bowl LVIII are the purple and black Baltimore Ravens and the red and gold San Francisco 49ers.

The logo? Purple and red.

Coincidence? Probably.

The Super Bowl LVII also featured a hint of purple and blue, and neither the Eagles nor the Chiefs had those as an official color.

It’s hard to tell what started these theories, but the NFL and former players have had fun feeding into them in the past.

Before the start of the 2023 season, the NFL promoted the regular season with a series of commercials where comedian and actor Keegan Michael Key led a table read with several top NFL players.

Even Donna Kelce, mother of Travis and Jason Kelce, made an appearance.

Speaking of the Kelce brothers, they alluded to the “scripted” conspiracy theory leading up to Super Bowl LVII, which featured a matchup between their respective teams.

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The brother vs. brother Super Bowl matchup happened at the end of the same season where the Kelces started their New Heights podcast.

During the peak of the trend in the 2022 season, former running back Arian Foster jokingly said that he would get a script from the NFL dropped off at his locker during training camp on his Macrodosing podcast.

Former quarterback Robert Griffin III responded to Foster with a GIF from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air where the main character breaks down crying saying, “Reading the End of the Script for 2012.”

In 2012, after a successful rookie season, Griffin III suffered a series of knee injuries that effectively ended his career as a top-end quarterback.

In order for the logo theory to continue following the “script” that conspiracists describe, the Ravens will need to beat the Houston Texans and the San Francisco 49ers will need to beat the Green Bay Packers at 4:30 Eastern Time and 8:15 Eastern Time, respectively, on Saturday, Jan. 20.

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