The History of the Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is the championship of the National Football League and one of the most popular sporting events of the year. The game was a result of the merger between the American Football League and the National Football League in 1966. Their deal called for an end-of-season championship game, which was first played between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs on January 15, 1967. Although initially called the “AFL-NFL World Championship Game,” the name was simplified to the “Super Bowl” in 1969. The games began to be denoted by Roman numerals two years later with Super Bowl V to distinguish each game from the year it was played. The Super Bowl quickly established itself as a major television event and consistently led the yearly TV ratings. As the games broke 80 million viewers in the 1980s, marketers began to realize the incredible potential for Super Bowl ad space. After Apple aired an iconic commercial for their Macintosh personal computer in 1984, companies began to air their best ads during the Super Bowl, whose time slots became the most expensive of the year. Part of the Super Bowl’s growing popularity was its increasingly popular halftime shows. While the first Super Bowls featured college marching bands, the halftime shows grew in popularity as famous musical guests were added. After Michael Jackson’s performance in 1993 drew more viewers than the game itself, it became customary for the halftime show to feature the top performers of the time. The day of the Super Bowl, known as Super Bowl Sunday, has evolved into an unofficial holiday celebrated with viewing parties held in homes, bars, and restaurants throughout the United States.