By Charles Jay 

THE SUPER BOWL — HOW IT ALL GOT STARTED

Compared to the spectacle it is now, the Super Bowl had relatively quaint beginnings; a little less organized, a little more tentative, and in some ways even downright haphazard. To say the NFL had the idea it would become as huge in scope as it is now may be stretching it a little. But there was never any real question of its significance as a national sports event, at least among those associated with pro football.

But how did it all happen?
THE AFL THROWS OUT THE CHALLENGE

The first real mention of an AFL-NFL title game came on January 14, 1961, when AFL commissioner Joe Foss, by telegram to his NFL counterpart, Pete Rozelle, invited the NFL to participate in a game matching up the champions of the two leagues, the product of a resolution which was unanimously approved by the AFL owners. This invitation would have been issued the year before, as the AFL was getting off the ground, but according to Foss, “It was felt time was needed to assay the relative strength of our league.”

The NFL wasn’t impressed, and wasn’t interested.

The next proposal, and the first one with some real money attached to it, came from NBC in May of 1964. The network, which was slated to begin a large TV deal with the AFL in 1965 and was understandably looking to elevate its own package, offered to donate $500,000 to the Kennedy Memorial Library Fund from a proposed “World Series” which would pit all-star squads between the AFL and NFL against each other.

Of course, Pete Rozelle opposed such a move; he simply did not want to lend any stature to the AFL. Indeed, there was a bidding war going on between the rival leagues, and the AFL had sued the NFL for anti-trust violations. The leagues were bitter enemies. And it did not advantage him, in his position as commissioner, to recommend that his client engage the enemy. He said the league would make its Kennedy Library donation through the proceeds of exhibition games.

But one thing Rozelle could not prevent was the way NBC would alter the course of professional football, and indeed, sports history, by virtue of its programming investment. Because the AFL had less clubs than the NFL, each team in the AFL was paid $900,000 per year as part of the NBC deal, as compared with $1 million to each NFL team. In short, AFL teams had drawn much closer to gaining an even footing financially with their NFL counterparts.

That enabled the AFL to continue its bidding war against the NFL for top college players, and at the same time strengthened its own market share with the public vis-a-vis the more established NFL. And eventually that was enough to affect a merger between the two - an action which brought us the game we now know as the “Super Bowl”.
UNITY - AND A CHAMPIONSHIP GAME

The merger between the two leagues was announced on June 8, 1966. The entirety of the merger was to be fully implemented when the leagues’ respective TV contracts expired; so that the newly-consolidated NFL could negotiate with networks as one entity. Those implementations including the realignment of the leagues into two 13-team conferences, and the establishment of Pete Rozelle as commissioner of the consolidated league.

But taking effect immediately - a common draft, which would end all the bidding wars over players, and the biggest potential attraction - an interleague “super-championship” game.

One second-year AFL star was cornered by a reporter that day and asked what he thought of the merger. “I’ll tell you one thing. I’ll really look forward to that title game between the two leagues.” For Joe Willie Namath, it wouldn’t be very far off.

But in point of fact, the first Super Bowl almost never happened, at least not that season.
SOME ANXIOUS MOMENTS BEFORE GETTING THE SHOW ON THE ROAD

Something that caused concern for Rozelle from the beginning was the potential restraint of trade problem brought about by the merger. Toward that end, he sought limited anti-trust immunity from Congress, but was turned down by Congressman Emanuel Celler of New York, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who did not want to enact special legislation granting pro football an anti-trust exemption. At the same time, though, Celler assured Rozelle that Congress would not take anti-trust action to block the merger.

However, a “handshake deal” wasn’t good enough for Rozelle. Because of what he termed the “numerous complex commitments that must be made on a long-term basis” to make the merger real, he felt concrete legislation was necessary. In fact, he felt the legality of the entire merger plan had to be affirmed before ANY aspect of it could take effect. And that included the so-called “super-championship game”. Frustrated in his efforts, and perhaps trying to prompt some action in Congress, Rozelle announced that the merger was “in jeopardy”. And the first Super Bowl, expected to take place four months from then, was officially in limbo.

Rozelle’s actions did indeed get the politicos moving; Celler’s opposition was circumvented by Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, who spearheaded a move to have a bill granting the merger its anti-trust immunity included as a rider on an anti-inflation bill. But it was now at the tail end of October, and even though the Super Bowl was presumably just 11 or 12 weeks away, there was still no official date for the game, and no site either.
WHERE TO GO?

The game was eventually scheduled for January 15, 1967, two weeks after the respective league championship games were played. And many potential locations were considered, among them Miami’s Orange Bowl, the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, the Los Angeles Coliseum, both Rice Stadium and the Astrodome in Houston, and the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. At the time, one important criterion for selection was that the facility have sufficient lighting power so that the game could be televised at night, and in color. And in 1966, some of the stadiums simply didn’t qualify. However, this point eventually became moot, as the game wound up being scheduled for the afternoon.

The selection of the Los Angeles Coliseum, which didn’t even submit a bid until the first week of November, was, in Rozelle’s words, “swayed by the invitation from John Ferraro (a former All-American at USC) and the Los Angeles City Council.”

The Coliseum, it turned out, was an awful venue for the game - only 27,000 of its 93,000 seats were situated between the goal lines. And with the field pushed all the way to the west end, it meant thousands of seats - as many as 10,000, in fact - were at least an entire football field away from the gridiron itself in the cavernous facility.
THE TV BATTLE

As heated as the rivalry between the NFL and AFL was, the competition between their respective network rights holders - CBS and NBC - was just as ferocious. And naturally, the question arose as to who would televise the first AFL-NFL World Championship game.

CBS wanted the game exclusively - after all, it had carried NFL games since 1961, and it had already guaranteed the league $2 million for the rights to televise the NFL championship game. They felt that through past association, they had earned the right. But NBC insisted on being involved, claiming that if the two merged leagues were to be considered equal partners, it had just as much right to the telecast.

Rather than give the rights to one of the two networks, or to an outsider (ABC was sniffing around too), Rozelle, to his everlasting credit, announced that BOTH networks would have rights to the game. And each would pay $1 million for the privilege. Starting the next season, the two networks would alternate carrying the Super Bowl game until their respective contracts with the two leagues ran out, at which time an entirely different deal would be negotiated with the newly-consolidated NFL as a whole (one of the purposes of the merger).

Rozelle’s decision on dual network rights for the first Super Bowl rankled CBS, which wanted a rebate on its $2 million rights fee for the NFL title game, on the grounds that it was now a less attractive event than the AFL-NFL Championship and might compromise its position with advertisers, who paid in advance for the airtime. Rozelle, who knew how to play the leverage game, refused the rebate demand. He was very aware of the value of the product he had.

So one of the more bizarre episodes in sports television history was about to begin - the first time a major live sporting event was to be televised on TWO networks simultaneously.
SOME RULES QUESTIONS

As the game approached, other problems had to be ironed out - namely, what ball to use. There were indeed slight differences between the AFL ball, made by Spalding, which was 1/4-inch longer than the NFL ball, with longer laces and more sharply-pointed at the end. The NFL ball, made by Wilson and nicknamed “The Duke”, was more rounded and thought to be easier to kick.

A compromise was struck - when the AFL team, the Kansas City Chiefs, was on offense, the AFL ball would be used, and when the NFL team, the Green Bay Packers, came out on offense, the NFL ball would be put into play.

But there was no compromise about the two-point conversion, which was part of the AFL rulebook. It was scrapped for the first Super Bowl game.
GET THAT “SUPER BOWL” NAME OFF THERE!

To hear Lamar Hunt tell the story, he was watching one of his children playing with a rubber “superball” one day, and out of that, came up with the idea of calling the AFL-NFL game the “Super Bowl”. He started to use the name during league meetings, and subsequently the owners and the media all picked up on it. The game was commonly known as the “Super Bowl”, and had been since very early in the process.

However, it was not OFFICIALLY called the Super Bowl, but rather, the “AFL-NFL World Championship Game”. In fact, it wasn’t until Super Bowl IV in New Orleans that the NFL actually put the name “Super Bowl” on its tickets.

When the world championship trophy was unveiled, Rozelle ordered that Oscar Riedener of Tiffany & Co., who had designed it, remove the words “Super Bowl” from the trophy, saying it “cheapened” the award.