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The history of the Super Bowl goes back to January 15, 1967 when Kansas City Chiefs played against Green Bay Packers n the LA memorial Coliseum.
| Teams | Kansas City Chiefs (10) and Green Bay Packers (35) |
| Stadium | Los Angeles Memorial Conliseum, LA, California |
| Head Coaches | Hank Strem for Kansas and Vince Lombardi for Green Bay |
| When | January 15, 1967 |
| MVP | Bart Starr, Quarterback |
| Referee | Norm Schachter |
| Attendance | 61, 946 |
| Cost of Commercial | $42,000 per 30 seconds |
The first AFL-NFL world championship game in the profesional history of American Football is known as Super Bowl I was played on January 15, 1967 on Sunday in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in California.
The NFL champions Green Bay Packers registered a 35-10 victory against the AFL champions Kansas City Chiefs. The convincing victory from the packers supported the claim by many sports writers, analysts and the fans that NFL was still vastly superior to any club in the AFL at the time.
Coming into the game between two rival associations, both the teams felt the pressure to win. The chiefs posted 11-2-1 record during the season, while packers finished the season with a 12-2.
The Kansas City defeated Buffalo Bills 31-7 in the AFL Championship game, while Green Bay Packers paved their way to the first ever SupeBowl defeating Dallas Cowboys34-27 in the NFC Championship game.
Reviving the First Super Bowl
The first half of the Super Bowl I remained competitive as the Chiefs outgained their opponents in total yards, however they were trailing 14-10 at the end of the first half. Disappointing, Kansas City could’t score at the second half.
Kansas’s scores came all in the second quarter of the game, but they remained blank in the first, third and the forth quarter. The best of the Green Bay came in the third quarter where they got two touchdowns.
| First | Second | Third | Forth | Total | |
| Kansas | 0 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| Green Bay | 7 | 7 | 14 | 7 | 35 |
This is the first and only Super Bowl in the history of Americal Football where two networks simulcasted the event. NBC had the right to telecast the AFL games, while CBC held the NFL broadcast rights; as a results both media were allowed to televise the game.
The Origin of the Super Bowl
The National Football League had a long standing history before the American Football League emerged. When the AFL was first introduced back in 1960, NFL began their 41st season. There were several other rivals for the NFL that emerged, but since they mostly included the NFL reject players, fans were unlikely to prefer it over NFL.
But unlike other NFL rivals, AFL survived and prospered. They made use of the NFL misjudgment by signing the NFL reject players, who turned out to be great talents. Then started a great bidding war between NFL and AFL where they would get engaged in signing top free agents.
Although the two teams had an agreement that they would not raid players in contracts, NFL’s New York Giants signed Pete Gogolak, breaching the agreement as Gogolak was a placekicker who was then in contract with AFL’s Buffalo Bills.
AFL considered it offensive and remarked as “act of war” and the AFL owners they hit back signing several contracted NFL players including more than eight of their top quarterbacks.
Eventually, it was considered enough and the two side tried to reach an agreement which led to the 1966 merger agreement. As an agreement, both team decided to share a common draft for the top college players. This merger agreement also paved way to the first Super Bowl ever. At the end of the season, the NFL and AFL winner would play a game to decide which league had the best team.
Interesting Facts
- The first ever Super Bowl in the history of American Football was played on January 15, 1967.
- Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs faced each other where NFL sides Green Bay Packers won 35-10.
- The first ever Super Bowl was hosted in Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in the LA, California.It accommodated 61,946 fans and was the first and the only World Championship Game to be simulcasted by two networks.
- Each players from the winning team bagged $15k each, while the players from the loosing side got $7500 each for the match. This was in addition to their championship victory shares where every players from Packers shared $8600 while Chiefs got $5308 each.
- The Green Bay packers quarterback Bart Starr was the most valueable player of the first ever SuperBowl. The Alabama man died at the age of 85 back in May 26, 2019.
- Kansas City Chiefs were the underdogs of the AFL-NFL World Championship games. The NFL league was considered vastly superior to the AFL because of it long standing history and the NFL side Green Bay packers backed up the fans and analyst’s claim with a convincing victory over the Kansas City.
- This was the only Super Bowl ever where the numeric yard markers were five yards apart, rather than 10 which is what we have today.
- AL Hirt, nick named Jumbo, who was best known for his million selling recordings of “JAVA” performed in the half time of the event.
- The game footage rights were shared between NBC and CBS. They collaborated to save the videotape costs and wiped out the tapes, which was a common practice back then to save costs in the TV industry.
- The game venue was a 94,000 seat stadium where 33,000 tickets were left unsold. The game ticket was priced at $12. The cost of advertisement for 30 seconds commercial was $42000 in the Super Bowl final.
Pre Match Anticipation
Many people anticipated that the Chiefs and Packers would play in the first NFL-AFL championships and they considered it a fitting. The AFL was founded by the Chief owner Lamar Hunt, while Green Bay packers joined the NFL back in 1921 one year after the league’s foundation.
Green Bay head coach Vince Lombardi was in a great pressure ahead of the game from the entire NFL management as they wanted Packers not just to win, but win by a great margin to display the superiority of the NFL.
The CBS announcer Frak Gifford interviewed the Packers coach and said that the head coach was so nervous that when Lombardi put his hand on Gifford’s shoulder, the interviewer could feel the Packers coach shaking like a leaf.
The match also had an eye on Len Dawson from the Kansas City as he spent three years of his career as a backup in NFL before joining the AFL.
