St. Petersburg Times, February 1st 1990

It might have featured a pirate ship, a postage stamp, a flaming sun, maybe even a flamingo. But after better than a year of back-and-forth between the Tampa Bay Super Bowl Task Force and National Football League Properties, Inc., the official Host to Super Bowl XXV logo features a football.

It will be emblazoned on shirts, mugs and every other kind of Super Bowl memorabilia imaginable as the Tampa Bay area begins the long warmup for the Jan. 27 game at Tampa Stadium.

A logo that appears on Florida's new Silver Anniversary Super Bowl license plate is the official one for the game, according to Bill Barron, general manager of the Creative Services Division of NFL Properties. That symbol will be printed on game tickets, programs and official souvenirs.

The Host to Super Bowl logo was designed by San Diego-based graphics designer Alice Choy Mitsunaga for NFL Properties, the league's licensing arm. ``They own it,`` said task force director Barbara Casey. ``It can't be duplicated, can't be used for any purpose without their expressed written consent.``

The odyssey of this logo began even before May 20, 1987, when Tampa Bay was awarded Super Bowl XXV. The task force, which had been using its own logo in promotions, sent it and several others to NFL Properties for approval. Properties rejected them and designed several of its own and sent them to the task force, which rejected them.

The flamingo failed to make it because of concerns that it would be in conflict with the symbol of the Florida Lottery. The sunset, pirate ship and postage stamp, as well as one with a football pierced by a Gasparilla pirate's sword, didn't make it because, well, they somehow just weren't right.

What both sides agreed upon was this one. The football is emblematic of the game itself, the water represents Tampa Bay and the triangle symbolizes the Tampa, St. Petersburg and Orlando areas.