Super Bowl I
The National Football League began its 41st season in 1960 with a new and unwanted rival: the American Football League. The older league initially ignored the upstart and its eight teams, assuming fans would never prefer it to established NFL clubs. This assumption proved wrong when AFL players turned out to be highly talented individuals the NFL had badly misjudged. Soon both leagues found themselves locked in a massive bidding war for top free agents and college prospects. Originally there was a tacit agreement between the two not to raid each other by signing players already under contract with an opposing team. That policy broke down in early 1966 when the New York Giants signed Pete Gogolak, a placekicker who was under contract with the Buffalo Bills. AFL owners considered this an act of war and immediately struck back by signing several contracted NFL players including eight of their top quarterbacks. Eventually the NFL had enough and started negotiations with the AFL in an attempt to resolve the issue. As a result of those talks the leagues signed a merger agreement on the 9th of June 1966. Among the details both leagues agreed to share a common draft to end the bidding war for top college players as well as merge into a single league after the 1969 season. In addition an AFL, NFL World Championship Game was established in which the champions of each league would play against each other at the end of the season to determine which league had the best team.
The Kansas City Chiefs entered the game after an 11, 2, 1 regular season record and a decisive 31, 7 road win over the defending AFL champion Buffalo Bills in the AFL championship game on New Year's Day. Their high-powered offense led the AFL in points scored with 448 total points and total rushing yards reaching 2,274. The trio of running backs Mike Garrett (801 yards), Bert Coan (521 yards), and Curtis McClinton (540 yards) all ranked among the top-ten rushers in the AFL. Quarterback Len Dawson was the top-rated passer in the AFL completing 159 of 284 passes for 2,527 yards and 26 touchdowns. Wide receiver Otis Taylor provided the team with a great deep threat by recording 58 receptions for 1,297 yards and eight touchdowns. Receiver Chris Burford added 58 receptions for 758 yards and eight touchdowns while tight end Fred Arbanas recorded 22 catches for 305 yards and four touchdowns. The Packers finished the regular season at 12, 2 and defeated the Dallas Cowboys 34, 27 in the NFL Championship Game. They were an NFL dynasty that had turned around what had been a losing team just eight years earlier when they posted an NFL-worst 1, 10, 1 record in 1958 before head coach Vince Lombardi was hired in January 1959. Bart Starr was the top-rated quarterback in the NFL for 1966 winning the Most Valuable Player Award completing 156 of 251 passes for 2,257 yards with 14 touchdowns and only three interceptions. His top targets were wide receivers Boyd Dowler and Carroll Dale who combined for 63 receptions for 1,336 yards.
At the time NBC held the rights to nationally televise AFL games while CBS had the rights to broadcast NFL games. Both networks were allowed to cover the game each using its own announcers. Ray Scott did play-by-play for the first half on CBS while Jack Whitaker handled the second half alongside Frank Gifford providing commentary. Curt Gowdy and Paul Christman were on NBC. This is the only Super Bowl Curt Gowdy called for NBC where the NFL or NFC team won since the AFL/AFC teams won the others even though the Baltimore Colts and Pittsburgh Steelers were part of the old NFL before moving to the AFC following the merger. However during the week preceding the game tensions flared between the staff of the two networks who each wanted to win the rating war to the point where a fence was built between the CBS and NBC trucks. Rozelle decreed NBC would not be able to use its cameramen and technical personnel instead forcing it to use the feed provided by CBS since the Coliseum was home to the NFL's Rams. The game remains the only Super Bowl to have been broadcast in the United States by two of the Big Three broadcast companies. It was the only NFL game to be carried nationally on more than one broadcaster until the 29th of December 2007 when the same two networks as well as NFL Network and various local ABC and MyNetworkTV affiliates carried a game between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants.
The first quarter saw the Packers drive 80 yards in six plays highlighted by quarterback Bart Starr's passes to tight end Marv Fleming for 11 yards and running back Elijah Pitts for 22 yards on a scramble. The drive ended with Starr's 37-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Max McGee giving Green Bay an early 7, 0 lead. McGee slipped past Chiefs cornerback Willie Mitchell making a one-handed catch at the 23-yard line before going the distance for the touchdown. Kansas City forced a three-and-out to start the second quarter then got on the board with a six-play 66-yard scoring drive featuring passes by Dawson to Garrett for 15 yards and to Otis Taylor for 31 yards which set up 1st-and-goal for the Chiefs at the Packers' 7-yard line. Dawson threw a 7-yard touchdown pass to fullback Curtis McClinton to tie the game 7, 7. Early in the third quarter Packers safety Willie Wood intercepted a pass and returned it 50 yards to the 5-yard line. The turnover sparked the Packers to score 21 unanswered points in the second half. Wood raced 50 yards to Kansas City's 5-yard line before being dragged down from behind by Mike Garrett. This was the biggest play of the game according to Starr later. The Packers capitalized on the turnover on the next play with a 5-yard touchdown run by Pitts to increase their lead to 21, 10.
All known broadcast tapes of the game in its entirety were subsequently wiped by both NBC and CBS to save costs a common practice in the television industry at the time since videotapes were very expensive costing around $300 per half-hour tape. Additionally it was not foreseen how big the game was going to become. For many years only two small samples of the telecasts were known to have survived showing Max McGee's opening touchdown and Jim Taylor's touchdown run. Both were shown in 1991 on HBO's Play by Play: A History of Sports Television and on the Super Bowl XXV pregame show. In January 2011 a partial recording of the CBS telecast was reported to have been found in a Pennsylvania attic and restored by the Paley Center for Media in New York. The two-inch color videotape is the most complete version of the broadcast yet discovered missing only the halftime show and most of the third quarter. The owner of the recording Troy Haupt came forward to The New York Times in 2016 to tell his side of the story after remaining anonymous and communicating with the media only through his lawyer since the discovery. On the 25th of June 2025 missing episode hunter Ray Langstone spotted a 29-minute Avco Cartrivision release of highlights on eBay and announced this on the Missing Episodes Forum.
The first AFL, NFL World Championship Game became known retroactively as Super Bowl I and referred to in contemporaneous reports including the game's radio broadcast simply as the Super Bowl. It was an American football game played on the 15th of January 1967 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles California. The National Football League champion Green Bay Packers defeated the American Football League champion Kansas City Chiefs by the score of 35, 10 winning their tenth championship in team history and becoming the first NFL team to win double-digit championships. Coming into the game considerable animosity existed between the AFL and NFL thus the teams representing the two rival leagues felt additional pressure to win. Many sportswriters and fans believed any team in the older NFL was vastly superior to any club in the upstart AFL and so expected the Packers would blow out the Chiefs. Tickets for this game were priced at twelve ten and six dollars which was equivalent to $109 $90 and $55 in 2023 when adjusted for inflation. The players' shares were $15,000 each for the winning team and $7,500 each for the losing team. This was in addition to the league championship money earned two weeks earlier with the Packers' shares being $8,600 each and the Chiefs' being $5,308 each.
Continue Browsing
Common questions
When was Super Bowl I played?
The first AFL, NFL World Championship Game became known retroactively as Super Bowl I and was an American football game played on the 15th of January 1967 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles California.
Who won Super Bowl I and what was the final score?
The National Football League champion Green Bay Packers defeated the American Football League champion Kansas City Chiefs by the score of 35, 10 winning their tenth championship in team history and becoming the first NFL team to win double-digit championships.
What teams competed in Super Bowl I?
The Kansas City Chiefs entered the game after an 11, 2, 1 regular season record and a decisive 31, 7 road win over the defending AFL champion Buffalo Bills in the AFL championship game on New Year's Day while the Green Bay Packers finished the regular season at 12, 2 and defeated the Dallas Cowboys 34, 27 in the NFL Championship Game.
How much did tickets cost for Super Bowl I?
Tickets for this game were priced at twelve ten and six dollars which was equivalent to $109 $90 and $55 in 2023 when adjusted for inflation. The players' shares were $15,000 each for the winning team and $7,500 each for the losing team.
Why are most broadcast tapes of Super Bowl I missing?
All known broadcast tapes of the game in its entirety were subsequently wiped by both NBC and CBS to save costs a common practice in the television industry at the time since videotapes were very expensive costing around $300 per half-hour tape. Additionally it was not foreseen how big the game was going to become.