The first Super Bowl was played on January 15th, 1967. It took place in historic Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, not far from the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. It featured the first world championship match up between an AFL and an NFL team. Legendary Coach Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers defeated the AFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10. About 61,946 people attended the game live, while millions more watched at home as both ABC and CBS television stations showed the game. The game was part of the merger between the rival American Football League (AFL) and the National Football League (NFL). That first Super Bowl led to the full merger between the two leagues into one incredibly successful professional football league. The name “Super Bowl” was coined by Lamar Hunt, a founder of the AFC and the Kansas City Chiefs owner in 1967.
In 1970, the old AFL teams, plus three NFL teams would form the American Football Conference (AFC). The remaining NFL teams became the National Football Conference (NFC). Following the attention and success of that first Super Bowl match up, the annual Super Bowl game has gone on to become a worldwide sports phenomenon like no other. Super Bowl Sunday is practically a national holiday! What was once just a game has become a week, sometimes two weeks, long celebration of the best two teams in the NFL.
