For those of us who can remember watching the first Super Bowl (which, by the way, was simply the “AFL-NFL World Championship Game” at the time – the term “Super Bowl” was not officially designated until the third one in 1969), the 52nd playing of the big game on Sunday may have had a sobering effect on our self-perception: we’re getting old!
Yes, while it may be a foreign concept for our youthful “millennials” to fathom, there was indeed a time when there was no Super Bowl at all.
The National Football League (NFL) has maintained some form of continuous existence since the 1920 season. Businessmen throughout Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and upstate New York established thirteen teams (none of which still exist in their original form) and, after meeting in the “office” of one of them (Canton Bulldogs), agreed to some semblance of an “organization.”
Characterized by random games with little standardization and no final records of wins and losses being officially kept, that first season of the American Professional Football Association (APFA) was a far cry from what the NFL is today.
In fact, throughout those early days of professional football, such an occupation was generally frowned upon by the upper crust of society. (The first Heisman Trophy winner, Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago, effectively refused to sign a pro contract in 1935 – he demanded twice the money being paid to the highest salaried NFL player – for fear of otherwise shaming his family if he became a pro football player.)
Obviously, much has changed in the 98 seasons that have elapsed since that inaugural year and the inauspicious commencement of what became the National Football League. Our modern Super Bowl is the most-watched single sports event on the face of the planet. NFL players enjoy salaries that could not have been imagined by their gridiron ancestors. Winning a Super Bowl is a dream, realistic or not, of Pop Warner and other little league football players across the nation.
So we all know what the Super Bowl has become, but just how and why did this behemoth of a sports spectacle originate in the first place?
Although a multitude of “reasons” could be accurately and legitimately cited as the precipitating basis for the beginnings of the Super Bowl, the succinct and definitive answer is “Joe Namath.”
Say what? The Jets’ quarterback of the late 1960s and early 1970s? Yes, that same Joe Namath who went on to be the most valuable player in Super Bowl III when his AFL New York Jets staged one of the greatest upsets of all time in defeating the NFL’s Baltimore Colts 16-7.
Prior to the 1966 seasons of professional football in the United States (the NFL and AFL were two different leagues playing two separate schedules), there was no concept of what we now call the Super Bowl. The well-established National Football League (NFL) had been challenged for fan money by the upstart American Football League (AFL) since 1960 but had yet to take the new group’s existence seriously. That all changed with the signing of Namath to a New York Jets AFL contract in January of 1965.
At the end of the 1964 college season, Namath, a highly touted quarterback at the University of Alabama, had been drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals (today’s Arizona team) of the NFL and the AFL’s Jets. Although each team offered him approximately $400,000 (equivalent to about $2.8 million in today’s money), Namath was more attracted to the nightlife in the Big Apple and thus joined the AFL’s New York affiliate team.
It was the Jets’ signing of Namath and the threat of subsequent bidding wars between the two factions that effectively gave some semblance of credibility to that “other” league. Financial pressure escalated to the point that, within 18 months of Namath joining the AFL, the NFL agreed on June 8, 1966, to a merger pact for the leagues.
Over the course of the next four seasons, a gradual process was designed to fully integrate the NFL and AFL. It was agreed that, as a means of equalizing the respective number of teams, the NFL’s Baltimore (now Indianapolis) Colts, Cleveland Browns (who are actually now the Baltimore Ravens and not to be confused with the current Cleveland Browns franchise) and Pittsburgh Steelers would transfer over to join the existent ten members of the new American “Conference.”
This transition was implemented for the 1970 season, thus completing the establishment of the two groupings (National Football Conference [NFC] and the American Football Conference [AFC]) that we know and love today.
Okay, so Namath’s signing in 1965 led (indirectly and reluctantly) to the acceptance of the AFL teams into the fold of the NFL, but so what? That one event hardly seems sufficient to qualify Namath as being the ultimate reason that we have a Super Bowl today. Maybe not, but there’s more to the saga of Joe Willie Namath and his ultimate effect on the history of the game of professional football.
As part of the merger agreement, it was decided that the respective champions of the two leagues should play each other in an “extra” game, if for no other reason than to begin to “ease” into the culmination of the integration process. The 1966 season was the initial year of this newfound partnership, so this NFL vs. AFL final game was set for January 15, 1967.
The first two “AFL-NFL World Championship Games” were thoroughly and convincingly dominated by the NFL representative Green Bay Packers. Having defeated the AFL’s Kansas City Chiefs 35-10 in 1967, and then beating the Oakland Raiders 33-14 the following year, the Packers’ superb performances seemed to substantiate the general perception that the NFL was the far superior league and that the AFL was hardly worthy of inclusion in the elite coalition of NFL teams.
That opinion was forcibly altered by Namath and his Jets in Super Bowl III. As a brash and candid 25-year-old, he had reportedly (stories differ as to the authenticity and/or context of this event) boasted that, not only were his Jets just as good, if not better, than the heavily favored champions of the NFL, but that he “guaranteed” a victory for his team.
As noted, Namath did indeed lead his “upstart” Jets to a stunning upset of the NFL’s premier team, the Baltimore Colts (whose transfer to the yet-to-be established AFC would not occur until 1970) in the 1969 Super Bowl. So, arguably, it was this first victory by the Super Bowl’s AFL representative that, as difficult as it may be for younger fans to conceptualize, allowed this “extra game” to become not only a legitimate “championship” contest in the eyes of the public, but ignited the soon-to-be meteoric rise to what the Super Bowl represents today.
So how did the “Super Bowl” moniker itself originate? Supposedly, it came from Lamar Hunt, first owner of the Kansas City Chiefs and then first commissioner of the old American Football League. While watching his granddaughter play excitedly with her “new technology” Christmas toy in 1966, Hunt asked her what it was. “It’s a SUPER ball, grandpa,” the little girl responded, with an exaggerated emphasis on the descriptive adjective.
Hunt, noting the existence of various “bowl” games at the college level, supposedly then conjured up the hybrid term “Super Bowl” as a means to convey the “super” magnitude that he thought to be apropos for the professional football championship encounter.
And, as they say, the rest is history.
