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Interesting tidbit about the 1998 Atlanta Falcons, who played in (and lost) Super Bowl 33 (XXXIII) - they played nine consecutive games in domed stadiums with artificial turf immediately prior to their Super Bowl game, which was played outdoors on grass in Miami:
*5 games in Atlanta (Georgia Dome - 4 regular season games, 1 playoff game)
*1 game in St. Louis (Trans World Dome, now known as the Edward Jones Dome)
*1 game in New Orleans (Superdome)
*1 game in Detroit/Pontiac (Silverdome)
*1 game in Minnesota/Minneapolis (Metrodome - playoff game)
Incidentally, the Falcons went 9-0 in those domed stadium games (and 13-0 for the season, including their other 4 home games before the streak of dome stadium games began).
The name of the big game was not intended to be the permanent name. "Super Bowl" came about as an accident, due to a misspeak by Kansas City Chiefs owner/founder (and American Football League founder) Lamar Hunt, who at the time preparations for the first game in January 1967 were being held had young children, one of whom played with a high elastic rubber ball called a Super Ball. When Hunt was discussing the game with other AFL and NFL leaders, he accidentally called the game the Super Bowl. Despite the fact most people disliked the name, including Hunt (NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle in particular hated the name; he thought "super" was a simplistic word), the name was a lot simpler than "AFL-NFL World Championship Game", and the name caught on. It started to be used unofficially by people outside of the two leagues prior to the first game, was included on the game program by Super Bowl III, and became the official name of the game by Super Bowl V, the first post-merger Super Bowl game.
There has only been one Super Bowl televised on two, major U.S. TV networks - Super Bowl I.
The first Super Bowl was televised on both CBS and NBC in part to pacify the TV partners for the NFL (CBS) and AFL (NBC) after the AFL-NFL merger was announced in June 1966. (Though the leagues didn't play a combined schedule until 1970, various other operations of the two leagues, including the draft, preseason games, and obviously the Super Bowl, were combined or coordinated much sooner.) The two networks actually used the same video feed for the game.
The two networks started alternating broadcasts of the game in Super Bowl II, with CBS televising. CBS then televised every even-numbered Super Bowl between SB 2 and SB 18, while NBC televised every odd-numbered Super Bowl between SB 3 and SB 17. The streak was broken when ABC televised their first Super Bowl, SB 19, after the 1984 season.
One other, related tidbit - the 2nd half kickoff in Super Bowl I had to be replayed...because NBC hadn't returned from a TV commercial break yet!
I will note a few mistakes so far.
The Vikings 4 Super Bowls occurred in the 60s and 70s, not 80s... plus Tarkenton was apart of 3 of those losses. SB 8,9 and 11.
mco65 is right. SB-IV had Joe Kapp as Minnesota's starting quarterback. A few facts on the Vikings regarding GM Jim Finks, Head Coach Bud Grant, and qb Joe Kapp. Kapp played for Calgary and the B.C. Lions, led the Lions to a Grey Cup victory.
All of them came from the Canadian Football League. Actually Jim Finks was a Pittsburgh Steeler quarterback from 1949 to 1955. He became a general manager in 1960 with the Calgary Stampeders. Though the Stampeders never won a Grey Cup, they won more games in the 1960's than any other CFL club. He left the CFL and became general manager with Minnesota in 1964.
And then brought in Bud Grant when head coach Norm Van Brocklin resigned. And brought in Joe Kapp in 1968.
Bud Grant had been a successful head coach with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers for several seasons in the late 50's to mid 60's. He won the Grey Cup 4 times during his CFL coaching career. Several years previous Bud did a professional basketball stint, he was a member of the Minneapolis Lakers from 1949 to 1951. The Lakers won the NBA Championship in 1950. Another unique thing about Grant was his brief NFL playing career with Philadelphia. In 1952 he played the last year of his contract at $8000. He wanted a raise and Philadelphia said no. He signed with Winnipeg for $11,000, stayed as a player and a head coach with the club for the next 16 seasons.
The Super Bowl is almost always played at a warm weather neutral site (or in a dome) in part because both the NFL and AFL championship games of the mid-1960s were often subject to terrible weather played on muddy fields. Games with poor conditions included:
NFL
1961 (Green Bay) - IIRC from what I've read, it actually wasn't too bad at Lambeau Field that day
1962 (New York) - brutally cold and windy day at Yankee Stadium
1963 (Chicago) - IIRC it was pretty cold at Wrigley Field that day
1964 (Cleveland) - I believe it was muddy and snowy
1965 (Green Bay) - typical cold December day for NE Wisconsin
1967 (Green Bay) - this was played after the merger agreement, but the Ice Bowl deserves a mention
AFL
1962 (Houston) - not cold, but part of the game was played in very strong wind and rain conditions
1964 (Buffalo) - War Memorial Stadium had notorious frozen and muddy spots, depending on where the sun hit the field
1966 (Buffalo) - War Memorial Stadium again
Though it is commonly reported the Oakland Raiders were the first wild-card team to win a Super Bowl, in Super Bowl 15 (XV) after the 1980 season, the first non-division winning team to win a Super Bowl was actually the 1969 Kansas City Chiefs, who finished second behind the Raiders in the AFL West but then beat the AFL East champion Jets in the AFL playoffs, the Raiders in the AFL championship game, and the NFL champion Vikings in Super Bowl 4 (IV). Super Bowl IV was also the last game ever played in the American Football League's existence, and the first Super Bowl to have a coach (Chiefs head coach Hank Stram) miked on the field.
Whenever you hear "65 Toss Power Trap", nod your head in appreciation of Stram (RIP), a future, long-time NFL broadcaster, and NFL Films head/founder Ed Sabol (RIP), who came up the night before the game with the inspired idea to mike Stram during the game.
Though it is commonly reported the Oakland Raiders were the first wild-card team to win a Super Bowl, in Super Bowl 15 (XV) after the 1980 season, the first non-division winning team to win a Super Bowl was actually the 1969 Kansas City Chiefs, who finished second behind the Raiders in the AFL West but then beat the AFL East champion Jets in the AFL playoffs, the Raiders in the AFL championship game, and the NFL champion Vikings in Super Bowl 4 (IV). Super Bowl IV was also the last game ever played in the American Football League's existence, and the first Super Bowl to have a coach (Chiefs head coach Hank Stram) miked on the field.
Whenever you hear "65 Toss Power Trap", nod your head in appreciation of Stram (RIP), a future, long-time NFL broadcaster, and NFL Films head/founder Ed Sabol (RIP), who came up the night before the game with the inspired idea to mike Stram during the game.
I remember that AFL Championship game very well Chip. I'd been to my first Bronco game in 1962. Back then the Bronco/Chief rivalry was the Hammer and the nail scenario. The Chiefs were the hammer and the Broncos were the nail. Out of 20 games played in the AFL history of the two teams, the Broncos won 1 game. That's right--1. The Raiders were a little better. Denver won two, tied one.
There was a stretch in that KC/Oakland rivalry where the Chiefs lost seven out of eight games. John Madden was a rookie coach at that time and IIRC they finished 12-1-1 in 1969. The Chiefs won that game--IN OAKLAND! Final score IIRC was 17-7.
Heh, 65 toss power trap! In the documentary "Full Color Football-The History Of The AFL" that the Showtime network broadcast a few years ago, Len Dawson was quoted as saying that none of the Chief players were aware that he was miked in that game until they saw it on an NFL tv special later that summer. And Hank certainly talked it up all right! Chip makes a good point regarding the radio broadcasting, obviously Gifford/Cosell/Meredith was what made the tv ratings go, but the Jack Buck/Hank Stram radio broadcast on ABC radio was first rate. Another trivia note---Jack Buck was a key figure along with Curt Gowdy regarding the early AFL years. Curt Gowdy's color man was Paul Christman, Buck's was Elmer Angsman IIRC. ABC televised the AFL games in their early years.
Oh, my gosh names from the past! I loved ABC's Wide World of Sports, which was on over 30 years and many reporters contributed to that show, too. As soon as I read Curt Gowdy, I remember him doing segments on Wide World.
Though I'm not old enough to remember the early years of the Super Bowl (the first one I was aware of was the Raiders/Eagles Super Bowl XV/15 game after the 1980 season; I started following the NFL regularly in 1981), I do remember many of the CBS and NBC TV announcers from the 1980s who I later found out had announced for the NFL/CBS or the AFL/NBC or ABC in the 1960s. One of the guys in particular who made an impression on me was Charlie Jones, ABC's and NBC's #2 PBP AFL announcer in the 1960s (and NBC's #2 or #3 PBP announcer in the 1980s). Jones was a fine, fine football PBP guy in my youth (early to mid-1980s), right up there with Pat Summerall (CBS) and Dick Enberg (NBC) IMO.
Though I generally watched more games on CBS than NBC back in the 1980s because I grew up in the Philadelphia TV market and became an Eagles fan, I think I liked watching non-Eagles Sunday afternoon games more on NBC than on CBS. The fact the Air Coryell Chargers were a top team in my very early days as a fan I think may account for that at least in part.
One thing NFL TV broadcasts used to have back in the early 1980s (I think until about 1983 or 1984) was a segment sponsored by aluminum maker Alcoa called "Fantastic Finishes". They showed near the end of games, and it seems like they were particularly common during the late afternoon doubleheader games.
NOTE 1: I just looked up those Alcoa Fantastic Finishes and found out that long-time Philadelphia Phillies PBP announcer Harry Kalas (RIP), who also did a lot of work with NFL Films (based in suburban Philadelphia, in Mount Laurel, NJ) and Westwood One, did the voice-overs on the Fantastic Finishes segments. (This actually makes a lot of sense to me; most NFL Films voice-overs historically-speaking were performed by Philadelphia area TV broadcasters or sports announcers, including the "Voice of God", John Facenda, who was a TV newsman in Philadelphia mostly before I was born.)
NOTE 2: For those of us of a certain age (roughly late 30s to about 60), the NFL/NFC will always be associated with CBS and the AFL/AFC will always be associated with NBC. It's like for people who grew up in or near New York (and I grew up close enough to NYC to get New York TV stations) that the Mets are supposed to be on Channel 9 (WWOR) and the Yankees are supposed to be on Channel 11 (WPIX). Of course, it was Fox' huge bid to win the NFC TV package prior to the 1994 season that really put that network, which only came into being in the mid-1980s, on the map and enabled it to truly join CBS, NBC, and ABC as a "major" over-the-air network.
There has only been one Super Bowl televised on two, major U.S. TV networks - Super Bowl I.
The first Super Bowl was televised on both CBS and NBC in part to pacify the TV partners for the NFL (CBS) and AFL (NBC) after the AFL-NFL merger was announced in June 1966. (Though the leagues didn't play a combined schedule until 1970, various other operations of the two leagues, including the draft, preseason games, and obviously the Super Bowl, were combined or coordinated much sooner.) The two networks actually used the same video feed for the game.
The two networks started alternating broadcasts of the game in Super Bowl II, with CBS televising. CBS then televised every even-numbered Super Bowl between SB 2 and SB 18, while NBC televised every odd-numbered Super Bowl between SB 3 and SB 17. The streak was broken when ABC televised their first Super Bowl, SB 19, after the 1984 season.
One other, related tidbit - the 2nd half kickoff in Super Bowl I had to be replayed...because NBC hadn't returned from a TV commercial break yet!
A few things to add here regarding SB-I:
The L.A. Coliseum was the venue--attendance was 61,946. Capacity for the Coliseum was 93,607.
A 30 second commercial was going for $42,000
Tickets were $12
An equal amount of refs from both leagues were used--3 from the AFL, 3 from the NFL, the head official was from the NFL-Norm Schacter.
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