On January 15, 1967, the first professional American football championship was played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. It was billed as the 1967 AFL-NFL World Championship. Tickets for the game sold for $6.00 to $12.00. The game was not sold out. Professional soccer spectators were not entirely fans at that point in the sport’s history, perhaps because they did not fully appreciate the potential of such an event. While the stated purpose was to determine the champion between two competing professional American football leagues, the National Football League (NFL) and the American Football League (AFL), the Super Bowl has grown to represent much more. It has become the ultimate symbol of America’s determination to succeed against all odds.

On that faithful day in January 1967, the NFL, represented by its champion Green Bay Packers, challenged the AFL’s Kansas City Chiefs. In a game contested by the two best teams on Earth, made up of the best athletes on the planet, and watched by professional soccer fans across the country, Green Bay, led by the legendary Vince Lombardi, defeated Hank’s Kansas City Chiefs. Stram by 35 to 10

When Green Bay returned the following year beating the AFL’s Los Angeles Raiders 33-14, many believed the AFL would never measure up. That all changed in 1969 when New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath made an impromptu victory guarantee to a rowdy Colts fan during a Super Bowl press conference. In response to boos from Colts fans, Namath said, “We’re going to win, I guarantee it.” Namath’s Guarantee caused a sensation as news agencies carried the story on every major news network in the country. On January 12, 1969, Joe Namath and his AFL underdog team went out and won the Super Bowl.

In 1970, the two leagues merged into the NFL creating two conferences out of the two previous leagues. All but one former NFL team became members of the National Football Conference, and all AFL teams became members of the American Football Conference. A team was needed to balance the schedule, so the Baltimore Colts switched from the NFC to the AFC. Consequently, the great 1969 Super Bowl matchup cannot be repeated between the Jets and Colts, as both teams are now members of the same conference.

In 1965, prior to the merger, the upstart AFL secured a $36 million contract with NBC for broadcast rights, bringing financial stability to the league. Many cities in the country, mainly in the south and west, did not have professional soccer teams to meet the growing demand for the sport. As the AFL grew to meet that demand, it also grew in prominence and began to compete for the top draft picks from college programs across the country. The two leagues observed an unspoken rule that neither would attempt to sign a player under contract in the other’s league. However, when the New York Giants signed placekicker Pete Gogolak, who was under contract with the AFL’s Buffalo Bills, AFL commissioner Al Davis took off his gloves and the AFL aggressively went after quarterbacks. highest-paid field in the NFL. With attractive salary offers, the AFL was successful in attracting 7 of the NFL’s most promising quarterbacks to the AFL in the 1965 season. Although the AFL later handed out the contracts, the NFL recognized the threat the AFL posed by looting its talent pool. The merger talks took place without the knowledge of NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle or AFL Commissioner Al Davis. On June 8, 1966, the owners of the teams in both leagues announced that they had reached terms for a merger agreement. The actual merger would take four years to complete.

As league officials searched for a sensational name for the annual championship game, Kansas City Chief owner Lamar Hunt proposed calling it the “Super Bowl.” Hunt, who owned the Kansas City Chiefs and one of the founders of the American Football League, came up with the name while he was watching his daughter play with a rubber ball that was a sensational toy in the mid-’90s. sixties. Whamo marketed the toy as the “Super Ball”. Hunt’s suggestion was only intended to serve as a temporary name, until a more glorious nickname could be agreed upon. Unable to find a more desirable or descriptive replacement, the name stuck.

More than 151.6 million viewers tuned in to watch the 44th Super Bowl in 2010. According to Neilson Ratings, the 2010 Super Bowl was the most watched television show of all time. It surpassed the long-standing record set by the final episode of the popular television series M*A*S*H, which drew 121.6 million viewers on February 28, 1983. In many ways, the Super Bowl has been turned into a numbers contest. In 2010, thirty seconds of commercial airtime sold for $3 million, a far cry from the $37,500 charged by NBC for a 30-second ad during the first Super Bowl. Super Bowl betting was estimated to exceed $10 billion in 2010. The game was broadcast in 34 languages ​​in 232 countries around the world. The 2010 Super Bowl added an estimated $400 million to Miami’s economy as a result of the Colts and Saints’ title challenge. Fans spent an estimated $5.6 billion on Super Bowl-related items during the championship. The media, marketing, entertainment, and backstories surrounding the Super Bowl have become as sensational as the game itself.

As of 2010, only two cities north of the Mason Dixon Line have hosted a Super Bowl; Detroit in 1982 and 2006 and Minneapolis in 1992. That trend is about to change. Dallas will host the Super Bowl in 2011, Indianapolis in 2012, New Orleans in 2013 and New Jersey in 2014. The NFL has also considered playing a future Super Bowl in London, England.

There are many great stories that make up Super Bowl history. One such story reportedly took place during the first championship game. According to the Orlando Sentinel, CBS and NBC covered the first Super Bowl sharing the same televised footage, but each used their own sportscasters. The cameras missed the kickoff of the second half of the game because sportscaster Charles Jones was busy interviewing Bob Hope. When the head referee ordered a new kick, a CBS producer ordered CBS reporter Pat Summerall to explain the mishap to Vince Lombardi, the Packers’ head coach. Pat Summerall, who played placekicker for the New York Giants under the legendary coach, refused to go anywhere near him. History serves as anecdotal evidence of the terrifying roar so often associated with Vince Lombardi, for whom the Championship Trophy is now named. Unfortunately, there is no known network coverage of the first Super Bowl. Reportedly, the only known tape was recorded to record a soap opera.

American broadcasting personality Mark Champion is well known to basketball fans as the voice of the Detroit Pistons. He is perhaps least known as the off-screen voice who asks the Super Bowl MVP, “You just won the Super Bowl, what are you going to do now?” Since 1987, Disney has been an important part of Super Bowl lore with its “What’s Next” ad campaign. The Walt Disney Company records two versions of the commercial, one promoting Disneyland in Anaheim, California and the other for Disney World in Orlando, Florida, and airs them in markets geographically relevant to the two theme parks. Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner credits his wife, Jane Eisner, with the idea for the long-running ad campaign. In 1986, during Disney’s opening celebration for the Star Tours attraction at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, the Eisners dined with Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager (no relation to Chuck Yeager), who had just broken aviation history with his non-stop flight around the world in his specially designed Voyager aircraft. Jane Eisner reportedly asked the couple what they planned to do next, and they replied, “Well, let’s go to Disneyland.” She later suggested that her husband use it as part of an advertising campaign to promote Disney theme parks. Since 1987, Disney has used what it calls the “What’s Next” ad campaign every year (except 2006) to promote its theme parks during the Super Bowl post-game celebration. Advertisements have become as much a part of the Super Bowl as halftime entertainment and the highly anticipated Super Bowl commercials.

Every year, millions of fans around the world plan their schedules around the biggest event in American football. The show stopping halftime talent, the knee-slamming commercials, the galas, the backstories, and the hype are as much a part of the show as the incredible athletes playing and brilliant strategists lurking on the sidelines. While basketball and baseball are played in other countries around the world, American football remains uniquely American. The Super Bowl is the championship game for the United States.