General knowledge · Sport
First played 15 January 1967
Sport — the championship game of American football
The annual championship game of the National Football League, first played on 15 January 1967 as the AFL-NFL World Championship Game, when Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers beat the Kansas City Chiefs 35–10 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The name was coined by the Chiefs' owner Lamar Hunt after the Super Ball, a bouncy toy his children were playing with, and became official from the third game. Each edition is numbered in Roman numerals, the winners receive the Vince Lombardi Trophy, and the game is reliably the most-watched television broadcast in the United States each year.
Green Bay 35, Kansas City 10 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on 15 January 1967, under the clumsier official title of the AFL-NFL World Championship Game (1967)
The first one; Bart Starr was named most valuable player and Vince Lombardi coached the winners
Named by a team owner after a bouncy rubber toy his children would not put down
Lamar Hunt of the Kansas City Chiefs, after the Super Ball; the name was unofficial until the third game
The trophy, sterling silver by Tiffany & Co., was renamed in 1970 for a coach who had died of cancer that September (1970)
The Vince Lombardi Trophy, awarded to the winners and kept permanently
Joe Namath guaranteed the win three days beforehand, then beat the heavily favoured Colts 16–7 (1969)
The third game — the first won by the old American Football League, and the making of the event's reputation
Every edition is numbered in Roman numerals except the fiftieth, in 2016, which was given an Arabic numeral because L looked wrong on a logo (2016)
The numbering resumed with LI the following year
New England led 28–3 and lost in overtime, the only side ever to squander such a lead in the game (2017)
The fifty-first game; the Patriots beat Atlanta 34–28, the first to go to overtime
Tampa Bay became the first team to win it in their own stadium, in February 2021 (2021)
The Buccaneers beat Kansas City at Raymond James Stadium; the Rams repeated the feat at SoFi Stadium a year later
Seattle 29, New England 13 at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara on 8 February 2026, six sacks of Drake Maye and a strip-sack returned for a touchdown (2026)
The sixtieth game; Seattle's second title, avenging their loss to the same opponent eleven years earlier