What year was the first Super Bowl?

Professional football looked very different before the NFL and AFL merged. The rival leagues competed for players, fans, and TV deals until they finally agreed to face off in a championship game before officially merging. What year did both leagues send their best team on the field to compete in what would become known as the Super Bowl?

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The answer is: 1967

The first Super Bowl kicked off on January 15, 1967, at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. But you won't find any "Super Bowl" flyers from back then. The official name was the "AFL-NFL World Championship Game," which exactly zero people found catchy.

Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt had coined "Super Bowl" after watching his daughter play with a Super Ball toy. The media loved the nickname (it does roll off the tongue a lot better) and used it unofficially, but the NFL thought it was too informal. They finally embraced the name for Super Bowl III in 1969.

The game saw the NFL's Green Bay Packers crush the AFL's Kansas City Chiefs 35-10. Tickets only started at $12, but the stands were surprisingly empty, with 33,000 unsold tickets. Even weirder, both CBS and NBC broadcast the game simultaneously because they each had rights to one of the leagues. They used the same video feed but different announcers. In a moment that still haunts network executives, both CBS and NBC missed the second-half kickoff because CBS was interviewing Bob Hope and NBC was still showing commercials.

The halftime show featured marching bands from the University of Arizona and University of Michigan, plus 300 pigeons. Yes, pigeons. The NFL hadn't quite figured out the whole entertainment spectacle thing yet. The bands played a tribute to jazz legend Louis Armstrong alongside guys in jet packs flying around the stadium. Yes, jetpacks. Every Super Bowl since has been trying to top that mix of Americana.