First and Ten: Ten Tales from the Super Bowl’s Legacy

By Rich Manning

Ah, the Super Bowl.  America’s un-official holiday.  An event so deeply ingrained within our personal psyche, it still manages to arouse a slight shred of curiosity among those of us who do not even care for football.   Indeed, we watch this annual gridiron battle between the AFC and the NFC regardless of team allegiance because it has forged such an organic gravitas about its existence; so much so, it feels less of an athletic competition and more like living, breathing history. 

To be certain, this intrigue that has long surrounded the Super Bowl has enabled it to naturally develop its own folklore, complete with obscure facts, quirky statistics, and other random items that almost seem implausible when viewed through the lens of time.  These various odds and ends started to develop the first time the old, established National Football League tangled with the renegade American Football League in 1967, and have served to grandly enhance the mystique of the Big Game, thus furthering its undeniable historical context.

Out of the hundreds of factoids that conspire to shape the way the public views the Super Bowl, here are ten items surrounding the big game that seem to best exemplify the legacy, pageantry, and exponential growth behind the Super Bowl’s undeniable mythos.

1.  The Name “Super Bowl” allegedly has its origins in a child’s toy.  The story goes that Lamar Hunt, the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs and one of the important figures behind the Super Bowl’s creation, was at home one night watching his children play with a Super Ball, the legendary ultra-bouncy rubber sphere created by Wham-O.  While talking to them, he mistakenly referred to the toy as a Super Bowl.  The rest is history.

2.  Super Bowl I was not a sellout.  This almost seems impossible to comprehend, considering how rapidly tickets these days disappear even though they boast an average price tag of $4,000 once the re-sale outlets get their hands on them.  But less than 62,000 people filed into the 100,000-plus seat L.A. Memorial Coliseum to watch the Green Bay Packers pound the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10, despite the fact the average cost to get into the game was a mere $12. 

3.  No actual network footage of Super Bowl I exists.  Ever wonder why every clip of Super Bowl I that you have ever seen has come from NFL Films, and not from the two networks (NBC and CBS) that covered the game?  It’s because the videotape containing the feed that both television stations used was wiped out.  To make matters worse, the longstanding rumor has been that someone recorded over the game with a soap opera.   

4.  The cost for running a TV 30-second ad during the first Super Bowl was $42,000.00. Today, the same ad will run upwards of $3 million.  Needless to say, back in 1967, the way advertising during the Super Bowl I was viewed was nowhere in the same ballpark as the way the commercials broadcast during this year’s game will be analyzed and scrutinized.

5. The game was not officially called the Super Bowl until Super Bowl III.  The first couple contests were referred to as the not-quite-as-marketable AFL-NFL World Championship Game.  Good thing Lamar Hunt bought his kids that ball.

6.  Super Bowl X doubled as an elaborate movie prop.  In the 1977 action film “Black Sunday,” the climactic sequence involved using the Goodyear blimp to blow up a stadium during the Super Bowl.  Aiming for the highest level of authenticity possible, the producers managed to convince the NFL to incorporate actual game footage between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Dallas Cowboys into the flick.  Not only that, some of the film’s actors ran around the sidelines during the game, filming some of the movie’s more intense scenes. 

7.   The Vince Lombardi trophy is made by the famed jeweler Tiffany & Company.  It costs approximately $12,500 to produce, and its estimated value checks in at about $50,000.  It does not, however, come in a blue box.

8.  It pays to promote Disney’s theme parks.  The Disney Corporation typically shells out $30,000 for players to utter the immortal post-Super Bowl phrase “I’m going to Disneyland!” or “I’m going to Disney World,” depending on your geographic location.  However, New York Giants quarterback and Super Bowl XXI MVP Phil Simms reportedly got paid $75,000 to be the first football player to say the Magic Kingdom’s magic words.

9. The cheesy performance event group “Up With People” holds the record for most Super Bowl halftime shows.  This much-maligned organization performed at halftime four times. This is something to keep in mind if you start to complain about Madonna’s halftime show this year.  Always remember, it could be worse.

10.  The Minnesota Vikings have never had a lead in any of the four Super Bowls they have played in.  It’s one thing to have a team only make it to the big game once and never claim a lead.  However, the poor Vikings had this happen to them in Super Bowls IV, VIII, IX, and XI – the only four times they’ve made it.  What’s more, the franchise hasn’t made a Super Bowl appearance since 1977, 35 years and counting.  (One of the items on this list actually had to be about football, right?)