The First Super Bowl Was No Big Deal
It was televised by two networks and was nothing close to a sellout, despite tickets as low as $6. It was thrown together in twenty-six days. And it had an unwieldy name. Saturday (Jan. 15) was the 55th anniversary of the first Super Bowl, a matchup of the champions of the National Football League and upstart American Football League on Jan. 15, 1967. But it was not called the “Super Bowl” at the time. Dubbed the AFL-NFL World Championship Game, the event was a tiny fraction of the behemoth it became. “The NFL title game was what determined the NFL champion, and was treated accordingly by the media,” said Cliff Christl, the team historian of the Green Bay Packers. “The first two Super Bowls were almost treated like the old College All-Star Game. A big game, but more of an exhibition.” The Packers, led by the legendary Vince Lombardi, defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10 at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in a meeting later known as Super Bowl I.