The ultimate prize every NFL season is the Vince Lombardi Trophy, awarded to the Super Bowl winner, the most popular event at the top NFL betting sites. This year’s Super Bowl is the 58th in league history, and any amateur historian knows the Green Bay Packers won Super Bowls I and II under head coach Vince Lombardi in the 1966 and 1967 seasons.
But when did the trophy officially get named the Vince Lombardi Trophy? It’s not like they could have named it that before Lombardi won the 1st one, though he was coming off 3 championship wins with the Packers from earlier that decade as the team of the 1960s.
Read on for a history of football’s most famous trophy, including its origin story, where it’s made, the dimensions, and who has the bragging rights for the most wins.
The Origins of the Vince Lombardi Trophy: Lunch at Tiffany’s
It’s not quite Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but the origin story of the Vince Lombardi Trophy is close to the title of that popular film from the 1960s.
Back in 1966, the NFL already knew it was planning to host a Super Bowl between the NFL champion and the champion from the rival AFL that started playing in 1960. They were already planning to start holding a common draft between the leagues in 1967 as well.
They had a big game in mind, but they needed a trophy. Sometime in 1966, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle was having lunch with Oscar Riedner, the Vice President of Tiffany & Co., the luxury jeweler otherwise known as Tiffany’s. He sketched on a napkin what the trophy would eventually look like with its iconic football on a three-concave-sided stand.
January 25, 1981 – Pete Rozelle presents the Vince Lombardi Trophy to #Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis as coach Tom Flores and Bryant Gumbel watch after the #Raiders 27-10 victory over the Eagles in Super Bowl XV.#NFL #OTD #1980s #SuperBowl pic.twitter.com/v8p618T9gJ
— JVAN (@VanderlansJim) January 26, 2024
They soon started producing the trophy in Newark, New Jersey before later moving production to a facility in Cumberland, Rhode Island starting in 2017.
Obviously, no one was calling it the Vince Lombardi Trophy when the Packers won Super Bowl I to end the 1966 season. It instead had the words “World Professional Football Championship” inscribed on it.
Lombardi sadly passed away unexpectedly at the age of 57 on September 3, 1970. The decision came quickly to rename the trophy in his honor as the Vince Lombardi Trophy. It was presented as such later that season in 1971 when the Colts defeated Dallas in Super Bowl V.
Since then, it has become affectionally known as a Lombardi trophy or just Lombardi.
Physical Appearance
You can say outside of maybe the NHL’s Stanley Cup, the Lombardi trophy is one of the best-looking trophies in all American sports. But unlike Lord Stanley’s famous Cup, they make a new Lombardi every single year out of sterling silver.
It stands 22 inches tall and weighs about 7 pounds, though it can feel like more to an excessively drunk player celebrating with it, or when Rob Gronkowski dented a Lombardi by using it like a baseball bat in 2019.
Video: One of the highlights for season-ticket members at the Patriots draft party tonight was a chance to see the Rob Gronkowski-dented Lombardi Trophy. pic.twitter.com/JDzsJBBS3y
— Mike Reiss (@MikeReiss) April 26, 2019
The trophy has come a long way from the beginning. It has “Vince Lombardi Trophy” engraved on it, and each year they add the names of the teams, the date, venue, and the final score from that Super Bowl. Other than the features of the league logo, the design has largely remained the same since Super Bowl I.
Players who win a Lombardi often get a smaller replica made for them to keep.
Team Bragging Rights
Which teams have the most Vince Lombardi trophies? Their fan bases likely know the count by heart given the way NFL fans are.
- The Pittsburgh Steelers (6) were the 1st team to win 6 Super Bowls, doing so in the 2008 season.
- The New England Patriots (6) tied the Steelers with their 6th Lombardi in the 2018 season.
- The San Francisco 49ers (5) were the 1st team to win 5 Super Bowls with their last coming in 1994.
- The Dallas Cowboys (5) matched the 49ers a year later when they won their 5th Super Bowl in the 1995 season.
- While the Green Bay Packers (4) started with a 2-Lombardi lead over the field, they only managed to double the total to 4 in 2010 despite spending 30 years with Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers as their quarterbacks in 1992-2022.
- The New York Giants (4) also won 4 Super Bowls with the last coming in 2011 at the expense of several teams on this list, including the Packers, 49ers, and Patriots.
- The Raiders (3) won 3 Super Bowls from 1976-83 under maverick owner Al Davis, a visionary from the AFL days.
- Washington (3) also won 3 Super Bowls in 1982-91 with Joe Gibbs impressively winning each title with a different starting quarterback, none of which are in the Hall of Fame.
- The Denver Broncos (3) were able to repeat in John Elway’s final seasons (1997-98) and win their 3rd in Peyton Manning’s final season (2015).
- The Kansas City Chiefs (3) won the last Super Bowl before the merger in 1969, then they had a long wait to do it again in the Patrick Mahomes era with (so far) 2 more Lombardi trophies.
“The Vince Lombardi Trophy is coming home where it started! …. World Champion, Green Bay Packers!”
— Jim Irwin
OTD in 1997 pic.twitter.com/X4vstbg40w
— Packers History (@HistoricPackers) January 26, 2024
To this day, no one has been able to win 3 Super Bowls in a row, though Lombardi did technically pull off a three-peat in 1965-67 when he won the 1965 NFL Championship Game followed by Super Bowls I and II.
In that regard, it is fitting for the trophy to be named after him, a true legend of the game.
