Super Bowl I Was From A Different Era.....

Today is Super Bowl Sunday. It's basically a national holiday. In fact, there will be a 6 hour pre-game show televised today. Justin Timberlake will entertain at halftime, and new commercials worth millions will be shown. Super Bowl LII, (that's 52 for those of you that are rusty with roman numerals.) will be played indoors in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I'm sure I've watched most of them. Even the first one. I was just a kid not even near high school yet. It didn't used to be such a big deal.

The first Super Bowl wasn't even called the Super Bowl. It was called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game. The Name Super Bowl and the roman numerals came later. The first one was played on January 15, 1967 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. It bore little resemblance to the national spectacle that will take place today. Here's how it came to be.

The National Football League started in 1920. For decades it was just a struggling spectator spot. Remember, these were the days when Baseball was truly the national pastime. The NFL didn't become popular until the advent of television in the late 1950's. The NFL Championship Game of 1959 was a very exciting game that was nationally televised. That may have been the game that mushroomed the NFL's popularity.

Super Bowl I - Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum

Back then the NFL owners were a men's club that were happy they were starting to make real money. Other rich guys wanted in, but the NFL was very slow to expand. So, in 1960, the other rich guys decided to start their own football league to compete with the NFL. They called it the American Football League. They even competed with the NFL in signing college players. This increased costs for everyone, so eventually cooler heads prevailed and a merger was worked out.

Before the leagues were consolidated together, it was decided a championship game would be played after the 1966 season. That's how the Green Bay Packers played the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl I, err the AFL-NFL World Championship game.

The pride of each league was at stake. The Packers were the veteran NFL Championship team and were favored. The Kansas City Chiefs, from the upstart AFL, had a defensive back named Fred "the Hammer" Williamson. His trademark was going around giving forearm slams to opposing players. When the Packers were practicing for the game, a player would mockingly go around saying, "Look out, here comes the hammer!"

The game was not a sellout, 61,946 people attended. The strangest thing was that it was broadcast live on two television networks. NBC had the rights for the AFL. CBS has the rights for the NFL. Since Justin Timberlake was not born yet, the halftime entertainment was the combined marching bands of the University of Arizona and Grambling State University.

As far as the game goes, The Packers broke open a close game in the second half and won 35-10. I don't think anyone could imagine that this game would be part of history. Even the networks erased the videotape. No one could dream what the game has become today.

A complete film of Super Bowl I does not exist, even though it was broadcast on two networks. The most complete copy of the game was found in somebody's attic in 2011. It is only missing halftime and most of the third quarter.

Today anything remotely associated with a Super bowl is in instant collectable. Even the broadcast commercials are celebrated. The perspective of time changes things.

It makes me wonder what is considered common today that will be historic in the future. Maybe a ticket to the next Cleveland Browns victory.

Link to a copy of the broadcast.