A long, long time ago, when the world was younger - much younger - than it is now, an idea sprang up in the head of a very wealthy man. His name was Lamar Hunt, and his family made its fortune in oil, gas and energy; so much so, young Lamar decided he needed a hobby. Fascinated with professional football, young Lamar decided he wanted to join the exclusive club known as the National Football League. It was 1960. America - and Americans - had discovered pro football, thanks in large part to the classic overtime contest between the then Baltimore Colts and New York Giants. There was only one problem: there was no room at the proverbial inn for young Lamar and his like-minded group of football aficionados. So, as the story goes, Lamar and a few other rich men met at Dallas´ Love Field, and in Hunt´s station wagon (yes, rich guys drove station wagons back then), they sketched out the details of what was to become the American Football League. It would be comprised of eight teams in various parts of the country, including some cities which never knew professional sports. Sure, there would be teams in New York (The Titans), Los Angeles (The Chargers) and even Dallas (the Texans) but it would also be home to cities like Buffalo, Denver, Oakland and Houston. The idea was to be a more inclusive, less stodgy product than its bigger, more established competitor, in the hopes it would attract a younger, hipper audience. A nice idea, but you needed players - and owners - willing to spend lots of money to sign those players.
Enter Sonny (as in money) Werblin, the New York theater impresario owner of the newly renamed New York Jets. In 1965, he fired a warning shot across the bow of the NFL by signing Alabama superstar quarterback Joe Namath to an unheard sum of $400,000.
Namath was also drafted by the NFL´s St. Louis Cardinals, but Werblin persuaded Namath to follow the bright lights to the big city, promising he would make Namath a superstar. And it worked. Namath´s signing highlighted the ever-escalating salary war between the leagues, which was growing increasingly out of control.
Enter NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle, he of the PR school of smoothness and marketing brilliance. Rozelle convinced fellow owners it was pointless to continue to engage in a money war with the upstart league, so a merger was agreed whereupon all AFL teams would join the NFL, with the merger being consummated in 1970. The announcement, made on June 8, 1966, included one more interesting tidbit: the respective champions of each league would meet for one more game. It was initially called The AFL-NFL World Championship Game. A little clunky, but the idea was clear: one game would decide which team could claim supremacy in the world of professional football. Only one problem: the name was long, and read more like the title of a congressional bill. A shorter, snappier name was needed. Enter Lamar Hunt´s daughter. (As a historical aside, Hunt had since moved the team to Kansas City, and renamed them the Chiefs in 1963. The NFL, feeling threatened by Hunt´s team, awarded a franchise in 1960 to Texas oilman Clint Murchison, who promptly named them the Dallas Cowboys. You may have heard of them). Anyway, one afternoon Hunt´s daughter was playing outside with her new toy, a high-bouncing piece of vulcanized rubber called a Super Ball. Hunt, always the innovator, thought the name Super Bowl would be a perfect name for the newly formed title game. He proposed it to Rozelle, who also liked it; in 1969 the league began promoting the game as the Super Bowl. Two years later roman numerals were added, and voila - an instant national obsession.
Now, a lot of things had to go right for this thing to have grown into the unofficial holiday it´s become. First, there had to be competitive parity between the leagues, and the Jets and Chiefs took care of that with their respective wins in Super Bowls III and IV. Second, the sport had to grow, and it did so around the same time television became the predominant way folks experienced sports. As everyone knows, football is the perfect TV sport. Finally, legalized gambling and fantasy sports gave the sport its final push to where it sits today, alone atop the American sporting landscape.
So when you and your gang gather around for version number LX this year, with nachos and beer in tow, remember it was the vision of a few men and a little girl´s toy which gave us this day. Such is the stuff of legend.
Let´s kick it off!