OT: 50 Years Ago Today - The 1st "Super Bowl" and Biggest Upset of All Time

[retired711]

That was during the season.

The championship game was against the Packers.

Yes, you are correct. After all, the Eagles and the Giants were in the same division. The game against the Packers was Vince Lombardi's only playoff defeat. The Eagles' 1960 victory was actually their third championship. Wilkipedia says the attendance was 67,000. The only way to fit that number into Franklin Field is for a lot of people to have *very* bad seats, because the stadium was originally designed to be a track stadium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_NFL_Championship_Game

 

[zappaa]

See, we knew you’d get it sooner or later.

Damn, Namath and Lombardi never won Super Bowls.
What idiots some people are!

 

[RUaMoose]

That's very tough. I'll go with Jets/Colts. If you listen to the game, you hear Curt Gowdy say the Jets were 18-22 point underdogs.

The Mets were also big underdogs but partially because they had finished last or next to last in every year of their existence up to that time. So the underdog/upset feeling was that much stronger and spread out over months. But the Mets had great pitching and when you have that, you have a chance in any game.

'69 was a tough year for the city of Baltimore. Two teams that were expected to win championships coughed it up. Even the Bullets, who would move to Washington a few years later, had the best record in the NBA but got eliminated in the first round by the Knicks

 

[Altrev]

I built a crystal radio (for anyone old enough to remember those kits) and it worked!! I listened to part of the game on that, and watched the rest on TV. I will never forget the pride of hearing the game on MY radio.

 

[zappaa]

'69 was a tough year for the city of Baltimore. Two teams that were expected to win championships coughed it up. Even the Bullets, who would move to Washington a few years later, had the best record in the NBA but got eliminated in the first round by the Knicks

Not that it’s important, but it was the 1968 regular season for the Colts

 

[wheezer]

Dumb debate. The pack won the first two super bowls. What the nickame of the game was matters not. It did not affect the numbering of the bowl, jets were superbowl 3

 

[T2Kplus10]

No one is arguing that this wasn't the world championship. The moniker SB wasn't officially used for a few years.

The origins of the Super Bowl
The Super Bowl wasn’t originally called the Super Bowl. At least not officially. The first American Football League-National Football League Championship Game was held in Los Angeles on January 15, 1967.

The 1967 title game was the first held between NFL and AFL teams, as the two leagues merged the summer prior, with an agreement to play a championship game at the end of each season. Commissioner Pete Rozelle settled on the cumbersome title after league owners were unable to come up with anything better. This, from football historian Harvey Frommer, for Time in 2016:

One of Rozelle’s suggestions for the name of the new game was “The Big One.” That name never caught on. “Pro Bowl,” was another Rozelle idea. Had the name been adopted, there would have been confusion, for that was the name used for the NFL’s All Star game. “World Series of Football” died quickly, deemed too imitative of baseball’s Fall Classic.

Frommer wrote that Rozelle settled on the ‘AFL-NFL World Championship Game,’ but as you can see in the Super Bowl logo graphic above, the logo for the first title game was actually just the words, “First World Championship Game AFL vs NFL.” That’s certainly not as catchy as…anything else they could have possibly picked.

As for the term Super Bowl, credit goes to AFL founder and Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt.

As his son, Lamar Hunt Jr., explained, the idea came from his “Super Ball” toy.

My dad was in an owner’s meeting. They were trying to figure out what to call the last game, the championship game. I don’t know if he had the ball with him as some reports suggest. My dad said, Well, we need to come up with a name, something like the ‘Super Bowl.’” And then he said, “Actually, that’s not a very good name. We can come up with something better.” But “Super Bowl” stuck in the media and word of mouth.

Dig a little deeper and you’ll find some questions regarding the origin story of the game’s name. In January of 2015, The Christian Science Monitor published a story about how the Super Bowl got its name, crediting Hunt, but calling into question when the game officially took on the name Super Bowl.

Although “Super Bowl” was used unofficially by fans and the media alike, the term was not officially adopted until the fourth annual championship in 1970 – the year before the now famous roman numerals were attached. In prior years the championship game was officially called the AFL-NFL Championships or World Football Championships.

Over the years, people challenged the name, and others have questioned the legitimacy of Hunt’s role in coining the term.

In 1969, there was a contest to rebrand the game under a more sophisticated name. “Ultimate Bowl” and “Premier Bowl” were the most well received of the many suggestions, but neither stuck and the championship game has been officially called the Super Bowl ever since.

An SB Nation post three days later regurgitated that point, reaffirming the stance that the game wasn’t officially called the Super Bowl officially until the fourth iteration. But the logos above and this photo from the first Super Bowl below seem to indicate the name was more than just a passing comment in an owners meeting that took off with the media for four years before the NFL adopted the term.

https://billypenn.com/2018/01/24/how-did-the-super-bowl-get-its-name/

+1
The first "Super Bowl" to actually say Super Bowl on the ticket was #4

Here are the first 3 ticket stubs:

But obviously the name became official and the NFL and everyone else started to use the name "Super Bowl" retrospectively.

 

[zappaa]

+1
The first "Super Bowl" to actually say Super Bowl on the ticket was #4

Here are the first 3 ticket stubs:

But obviously the name became official and the NFL and everyone else started to use the name "Super Bowl" retrospectively.

Correct and Incorrect.
The NFL used the name retrospectively.
Everyone else did it from day one.
As soon as the AFL and NFL Championship games had been played in 1966... The Super Bowl was adopted by all media and fans

 

[RUnTeX]

Well, this thread has provided more information than I ever thought I'd care to know about the Super Bowl.

Anyway, the Super Bowl is still about the dumbest and most gimmicky sounding name anyone could have come up with....even for an annual event that has gone on to become such a huge worldwide mega-event with hundreds of millions of viewers.

It's like amateur hour in terms of sporting event names. I'm a little amazed it stuck and wasn't widely rejected by league officials or without being mocked by fans and media. I suppose it's short and simple so perhaps it's a marketer's dream from that perspective?

 

[T2Kplus10]

Correct and Incorrect.
The NFL used the name retrospectively.
Everyone else did it from day one.
As soon as the AFL and NFL Championship games had been played in 1966... The Super Bowl was adopted by all media and fans

Yes, very true. Also, I always assumed that the "Super Bowl" name simply came from a play on the college bowl system.....Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl, Cotton Bowl.....well this was the biggest football game ever, so it must be the Super Bowl.

 

[RUfromSoCal?]

Well, this thread has provided more information than I ever thought I'd care to know about the Super Bowl.

Anyway, the Super Bowl is still about the dumbest and most gimmicky sounding name anyone could have come up with....even for an annual event that has gone on to become such a huge worldwide mega-event with hundreds of millions of viewers.

It's like amateur hour in terms of sporting event names. I'm a little amazed it stuck and wasn't widely rejected by league officials or without being mocked by fans and media. I suppose it's short and simple so perhaps it's a marketer's dream from that perspective?

don't disagree...... but, i always thought the most "gimicky" name was World Series................ since it is, actually, the exact opposite... (well, maybe you get one point for 1/2 a team in Canada...)

 

[BoroKnight]

Anyone who doubts the utter idiocy of message boards need look no further than this thread.

Although some of the sarcasm isn't bad, EVERYBODY knows it wasn't officially "Super Bowl" at first. That doesn't mean we later decided to call them Super Bowl I, II and, judging from the above, III)

It's a quirky bit of history, but the way some people responded to this went way beyond having a little fun with it.

I will forever be happy the AFL made it 2-2 before the merger, though. Whatever you call the games.

 

[e5fdny]

Anyone who doubts the utter idiocy of message boards need look no further than this thread.

Although some of the sarcasm isn't bad, EVERYBODY knows it wasn't officially "Super Bowl" at first. That doesn't mean we later decided to call them Super Bowl I, II and, judging from the above, III)

It's a quirky bit of history, but the way some people responded to this went way beyond having a little fun with it.

I will forever be happy the AFL made it 2-2 before the merger, though. Whatever you call the games.

Not EVERYBODY and you need to look no further than this thread. ;)

 

[GoodOl'Rutgers]

That is correct. The first two were known as the AFL/NFL Championship Game. This was the first to be referenced as "Super Bowl" - a play on words of the new toy of that time, the Super Ball.

Superball was a great toy until it hit you smack in the eyeball.

 

[GoodOl'Rutgers]

Correct.

I personally feel that the Super Bowl Champions have wrongly displaced all the other pre-Super Bowl era teams that won the NFL Championship. Essentially those championships have equal validity as Super Bowl winners - but it seems fans and history don't honor that. They should. The New York Giants winning the 1956 NFL Championship has as much validity as them winning Super Bowl XXI from the 1986 season. Yet everyone will talk about previous Super Bowl winners with little mention of things pre-Super Bowl era.

I think the problem stems from the AFL beginning in 1960. Some good players went to the AFL and the AFL had champions per year as well as the NFL.

So what do you do? prior to 1960 the NFL champion should have as much validity as the Superbowl Champions. But from 1960 to 1966.. there were 2 champions, neither of which having as great a claim as those before or after the Superbowl era began.

Perhaps call them co-champions?

Then you can have as many championships as the years the NFL has been around.

Sure.. lets stop referring to how many Superbowls a team has won and talk about how many championships. I think that can be done.. just get the talking heads to start doing it.

 

[RU848789]

Which was the bigger upset, Jets/Colts or Mets/Orioles later that year?

Both crushed my family and me, as my mom and dad were from Baltimore and that was the first year I was really aware of being a sports fan and they were my teams. My dad actually banished my mom from the first floor of our house during the Colts game, accusing her of not caring enough, which, of course, was why they were losing, lol. They were divorced 2 years later...

 

[mdk01]

Which was the bigger upset, Jets/Colts or Mets/Orioles later that year?

Given the Mets pitching staff that was an upset but not THAT much of an upset.

And while Namath, with the prediction, was the face of that win, it was really the Jets defense that won that game.

 

[RUhasarrived]

One thing I forgot to include last week: On the night of the Jets' win,the Daily News night owl edition had a cartoon by the legendary Bill Gallo.The cartoon featured one kid asking another:"Who's next,the Mets?"

 

[AntiG]

Superball was a great toy until it hit you smack in the eyeball.

i had a nice collection of like 50 of them at one point when i was little. not sure what happened to them.