The shining Vince Lombardi Trophy for the victor: The history, value, and cost of Super Bowl’s ultimate prize
The National Football League’s (NFL) championship game, Super Bowl LIX is upon us and the excitement around the American football event is already through the roof! With Kansas City Chiefs (Taylor Swift’s boyfriend Travis Kelce’s team!) qualifying for the Super Bowl and defending their Super Bowl Champion’s trophy this year – it’s only normal for the fans to go gaga over the Super Bowl LIX, which is supposed to be held on 6:30 pm Eastern Time, on February 9, 2025, at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Kansas City Chiefs will be facing the Philadelphia Eagles for the Super Bowl, which is yet another popular American Football team! The winner will get to take the Vince Lombardi Trophy home, aka the Lombardi Trophy, which is awarded each year to the winning team of the NFL championship game.
Here’s all you need to know about the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
The make and the worth:
The Vince Lombardi Trophy stands 22 inches (56 cm) tall, weighs 107.3 ounces or approximately 7 pounds (3.2 kg), depicts a football in a kicking position on a three concave-sided stand, and is entirely made of sterling silver.
During lunch with NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle in 1966, Tiffany & Co. vice president Oscar Riedner sketched on a cocktail napkin what would become the Vince Lombardi Trophy: a football in a kicking position on a three-concave-sided stand. The original trophy was produced by Tiffany & Co. in Newark, New Jersey. Others have since been handcrafted by the company in Parsippany, New Jersey. As of 2017, the trophy is produced at the Tiffany & Co. Forest Hill manufacturing facility in Cumberland, Rhode Island.
The Lombardi Trophy takes approximately four months to create, with skilled artisans dedicating over 72 hours of labor to complete each one. While it costs $50,000 to make, the physical trophy itself is estimated to be valued at around $10,000.
The yearly tradition:
Unlike trophies such as the Stanley Cup and the Grey Cup, a new Vince Lombardi Trophy is cast every year, and the winning team maintains permanent possession of it. The one exception is the trophy won by the then-Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl V, possession of which the city of Baltimore, albeit, a replica, retained as part of the legal settlement after the Colts made their infamous “Midnight Mayflower” relocation to Indianapolis, Indiana, on March 29, 1984. Both the relocated Colts and their successors, the Ravens, have since earned trophies in their own right.
The words “Vince Lombardi Trophy” along with the Roman numerals of that year’s Super Bowl are engraved on, and the NFL shield is affixed onto the base.
After the trophy is awarded, it is sent back to Tiffany’s to be engraved with the names of the participating teams, the date, location, and the game’s final score. It is then sent back to the winning team for them to keep. Smaller replicas are made for each person on the winning team.
Since Super Bowl XLV, the Vince Lombardi Trophy has been prominently featured in the Super Bowl logo design.
Why the ‘Lombardi’ trophy?
The first champion’s trophy, inscribed with the words “World Professional Football Championship,” was awarded to the Green Bay Packers on January 15, 1967, after they defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl I. Following the death of Vince Lombardi in September 1970, the trophy was officially renamed in his memory. It was presented for the first time as the Vince Lombardi Trophy to the Baltimore Colts after their victory over the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl V.
Originally, the trophy was presented inside the winning team’s locker room. Since Super Bowl XXX in January 1996, it has been presented to the owner of the winning team on the field. Packers team president and CEO Bob Harlan and Mark Murphy accepted the trophy on behalf of the Green Bay community after Super Bowl XXXI and Super Bowl XLV, respectively.
Which team has won the most number of Lombardi trophies?
The New England Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers have each won the Vince Lombardi Trophy six times, the most of any NFL team.
Teams with the Lombardi trophies:
New England Patriots: Won in 2001, 2003, 2004, 2014, 2016, and 2018
Pittsburgh Steelers: Won in 1974, 1975, 1978, 1979, 2005, and 2008
Dallas Cowboys: Won in 1971, 1977, 1992, 1993, and 1995
San Francisco 49ers: Won in 1981, 1984, 1988, 1989, and 1994
Green Bay Packers: Won in 1966, 1967, 1996, and 2010
New York Giants: Won in 1986, 1990, 2007, and 2011
Kansas City Chiefs: Won in 1969, 2019, 2022, and 2023
If the Kansas City Chiefs manage to win this Super Bowl game by beating the Philadelphia Eagles (appeared in five Super Bowls, winning Super Bowl LII at the end of the 2017 season), they’ll be lifting the trophy for the fifth time and will make a ‘three-peat’ as well!
