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Top 100 momentsNo. 19

Football

Super Bowl I

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Green Bay beats Kansas City in Los Angeles. Two leagues share a title game; a few years later they share a league. The broadcast becomes an American holiday.

The NFL and the AFL agree to a championship game before they agree to a merger. Super Bowl I is played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The seats are not full. Vince Lombardi’s Packers beat the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10. Two networks broadcast it. The name “Super Bowl” is still a little embarrassing.

Within a few years the leagues are one, the game is the highest-rated show in America, and February is a national unofficial holiday. Halftime becomes an industry. The commercials cost more than the original teams.

Super Bowl I is small in the rearview. It is the contract that made the rest possible: one game to settle two leagues, then one league, then a spectacle that barely needs the football.