Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is the annual championship game of the National Football League (NFL). A product of the NFL's late 1960s merger with the American Football League (AFL), the Super Bowl began as a ceremonial championship game between the two rival leagues' top teams. Although it debuted with little fanfare and limited interest from the general public, the game eventually took hold and became both a hit with fans and a commercial success. In the years since the Green Bay Packers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in the inaugural edition of what was then referred to as the AFL-NFL World Championship Game in 1967, the Super Bowl has evolved into an American cultural event featuring championship football, extravagant halftime shows headlined by the world's top entertainers, elaborate television commercials, and a yearly audience of millions.

Background

The history of the Super Bowl begins with the formation of the AFL in 1960. Until that time, the NFL, founded in 1920, was America's only professional football league. When the AFL began operations, the two leagues became immediate rivals, competing fiercely for players and fans alike. Within just a few years, however, NFL and AFL officials realized that the two leagues would be even more successful if they began working together. To that end, the NFL and AFL announced in 1966 that they would merge into a single league for the 1970 season. As part of the buildup to this historic merger, the leagues decided that they would begin playing an annual championship game in which the champion NFL and AFL teams would play each other to determine ultimate football supremacy.

The first AFL-NFL World Championship Game, as it was originally named, took place on January 15, 1967, at the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, California. In front of almost sixty-two thousand fans and a television audience of about 51.1 million viewers, the NFL's Green Bay Packers defeated the AFL's Kansas City Chiefs 35–10. At halftime, fans were treated to performances by college marching bands and the Bell Rocket Air Men jetpack team. Although not an overwhelming success, the AFL-NFL World Championship Game became an annual tradition.

As the NFL/AFL merger approached, at least one prominent football figure thought that the championship game needed a better name. Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt thought that “AFL-NFL World Championship Game” was a clunky and unattractive moniker. He wanted to refer to the game as a “bowl” in the tradition of college football contests such as the Rose Bowl or the Orange Bowl. Upon witnessing his young daughter playing with a toy called a Superball, he came up with the name Super Bowl. Although Hunt himself began referring to the championship game as the Super Bowl as early as 1966, it was not until the third edition of the game in 1969 that the AFL-NFL World Championship Game officially became known as the Super Bowl.

Overview

Super Bowl III marked an important turning point in the evolution of the NFL's marquee game. In addition to the name change, Super Bowl III featured an epic showdown between the NFL's accomplished Baltimore Colts and the AFL's upstart New York Jets. When brash young quarterback Joe Namath unexpectedly led the Jets to an upset victory over the Colts, he ignited a strong new interest in the Super Bowl that cemented its popularity with fans.

In the 1970s, surging fan interest meant higher television ratings, which in turn drove up the game's value among advertisers and helped make the Super Bowl a commercial success. As early as 1973, advertisers began creating unique Super Bowl commercials to promote their products in front of the massive viewing audiences that tuned in to watch the game. Among the most memorable of these early Super Bowl commercials were Joe Namath's 1973 Noxzema commercial with actor Farrah Fawcett and the iconic 1979 Coca-Cola commercial in which notoriously tough Pittsburgh Steeler “Mean” Joe Greene tossed his jersey to a young fan. Over time, these Super Bowl commercials became so elaborate that they garnered as much interest and anticipation among viewers as the game itself.

Another aspect of the Super Bowl that became more elaborate over the years was the halftime show. As the game grew more popular, the halftime show evolved to become an extravagant entertainment spectacle in its own right. While most of the shows through the 1970s and 1980s still featured marching bands and other acts, halftime at the Super Bowl became a major stage for the world's top musical performers starting in the 1990s, especially after Michael Jackson headlined the halftime show at Super Bowl XXVII in 1993. Since that time, Super Bowl halftime shows have been played by such entertainment luminaries as Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and Usher.

Other halftime performances are remembered for their controversial elements, including the infamous Super Bowl XXXVIII show in 2004, during which performer Janet Jackson's breast was briefly exposed, igniting widespread debate about broadcast rules and censorship. Also much-scrutinized was the show for Super Bowl LIII in 2019. Several prominent artists reportedly declined to perform in protest of the NFL's alleged blacklisting of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, whose kneeling during the pregame playing of the national anthem to protest police violence against people of color had generated controversy. The artists who did perform, Maroon 5 featuring Travis Scott and Big Boi, were criticized by many for taking the stage.

Certain halftime shows have also been considered historically notable for other reasons. For example, Super Bowl LVI in 2022 was seen as significant for featuring all hip-hop artists, in this case including Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, as headliners for the first time.

Some on-field developments at the Super Bowl have also been hailed as culturally significant. In particular, there has been considerable attention to issues of racial representation in the championship game, as the NFL has often been criticized for a lack of people of color in leadership roles. Super Bowl XXII in January 1988 was the first with a team led by a Black quarterback, when Doug Williams led his Washington squad to victory over the Denver Broncos. In 2007 Lovie Smith of the Chicago Bears and Tony Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts became the first Black head coaches in the Super Bowl (Dungy became the first to win). Super Bowl LVII in 2023 was the first to feature Black quarterbacks starting for both teams, with Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs prevailing over Jalen Hurts of the Philadelphia Eagles. While Mahomes and Hurts then met again at the Super Bowl in 2025, Hurts and the Eagles came out on top this time, keeping Mahomes and the Chiefs from winning a record third consecutive Super Bowl.

Meanwhile, many analysts also suggested that Super Bowl LVII reflected the NFL's transformative shift toward a new style of quarterback play that emphasized running the ball as well as passing. Mahomes and Hurts were counted among this new generation of players taking over from the superstars of the 2000s and 2010s—most notably Tom Brady, who, in an NFL career from 2000 to 2022, set many Super Bowl records. In keeping with that, Super Bowl LVIII saw a new record set for career rushing yards by a quarterback (Mahomes), the longest field goal in its history, and a record-breaking number of field goals and total field goals at the Super Bowl by the same player (Harrison Butker in four appearances).

Few Super Bowl games have ever gone into overtime. The first was 2017's Super Bowl LI, in which the New England Patriots bested the Atlanta Falcons with a tie-breaking one-yard touchdown. In 2022, postseason game rules were amended to allow both teams a chance at possession in overtime. Super Bowl LVIII in 2024, between the Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers, marked only the second time in the event's history that the game went into overtime. Much was made of the rules change after the 49ers lost that game, and it became clear that a number of 49er players were not aware of the new rules. That overtime play also pushed Super Bowl LVIII to just under seventy-five minutes, the longest on-air run time to date (though 2013's Super Bowl XLVII remained the longest Super Bowl from first to last whistle).

Despite its humble beginnings, the Super Bowl has become a cultural phenomenon and part of the fabric of Americana. Over the years it has grown into such a major event that the entire week leading up to the “big game” has become an extended media spectacle featuring constant news coverage, analytical speculation, and player interviews. People across the United States gather to celebrate and watch the game together every year; an unprecedented 202.4 million viewers tuned into Super Bowl LVIII at some point, the most to date. (It also averaged an audience of 123.4 million at any given time, making it the most watched telecast up to then.) Many people host or attend Super Bowl parties in which a variety of foods and drinks are typically enjoyed in abundance; by the 2010s, Super Bowl Sunday was considered the second-largest event for US food consumption, behind only Thanksgiving. Sports betting has also become a popular form of engagement with the event.

Attending the Super Bowl in person is widely viewed as a prized opportunity for football fans, and average ticket prices rose from a maximum of $12 per seat in 1967 to over $6,000 per seat in the early 2020s. A rare exception to the game's high attendance figures came in 2021, as public health protocols related to the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic limited the number of tickets sold for the event.

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