First Super Bowl

The first Super Bowl, played in January 1967, pitted the National Football League champion Green Bay Packers against the American Football League champion Kansas City Chiefs. The Packers won decisively, and the game, then officially called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game, grew into the most-watched annual sporting event in the United States and a fixture of American culture.

The game grew out of a rivalry between two leagues. The NFL, founded in 1920, was the established power in professional football. The AFL launched in 1960 with eight teams and challenged it for players, markets and television audiences. It signed a network television contract and competed hard for college talent, and the bidding war drove up salaries on both sides. By 1966 the leagues agreed to merge, with a full merger completed in 1970. As part of the deal, their champions would meet in a title game beginning after the 1966 season.

The contest took place at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Green Bay, coached by Vince Lombardi, was among the most respected teams in the sport, with quarterback Bart Starr leading the offense. Kansas City, coached by Hank Stram, featured a fast, inventive attack and a strong young roster. The game stayed relatively close in the first half, but Green Bay pulled away in the second and won 35-10. Starr was named most valuable player. The stadium was not full, and the game was broadcast by both CBS and NBC, an unusual arrangement reflecting the leagues' separate television contracts.

Many observers at the time viewed the result as confirmation of NFL superiority, and the Packers won the following year's game as well. But the AFL's standing changed when the New York Jets, led by quarterback Joe Namath, upset the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III, followed by a Chiefs victory in Super Bowl IV. These results showed the leagues were competitive, and the merger proceeded smoothly.

The name "Super Bowl" was reportedly suggested by Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt, who said it echoed a toy his children owned, and it came into general use soon afterward. The trophy was later named for Vince Lombardi after his death in 1970. Over the following decades the game became a major television event, a showcase for expensive advertising and halftime entertainment, and an unofficial national occasion. Its modest, partly empty first edition gave little sign of that future, which makes the later scale of the event all the more striking.