Super Bowl

The Coliseum stood two-thirds empty the day American football's greatest prize was born.

On 15 January 1967, the Green Bay Packers met the Kansas City Chiefs at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in what was officially called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game. The Packers, led by head coach Vince Lombardi, won 35–10 before a crowd of 61,946, roughly a third of the Coliseum's capacity. The game wasn't yet called the Super Bowl in any official capacity, though the name, reportedly inspired by AFL founder Lamar Hunt's daughter's Super Ball toy, was already in common use among the press.

Namath won Super Bowl III as MVP without throwing a single touchdown pass.

Super Bowl III, played on 12 January 1969 at the Orange Bowl in Miami, is the game that made the Super Bowl matter. The New York Jets, 18-point underdogs from the supposedly inferior AFL, stunned the Baltimore Colts 16–7 after quarterback Joe Namath famously guaranteed victory three days before kickoff. It was the first time an AFL team had won, and it legitimised the upcoming merger between the two leagues. Namath was named MVP without throwing a single touchdown pass.

Four Super Bowls across five seasons; the Steelers turned the newly unified NFL's showpiece into their private hunting ground.

The merger of the American Football League and the National Football League, agreed in 1966 but fully implemented for the 1970 season, transformed the Super Bowl from an inter-league exhibition into the NFL's true championship game. The newly unified league split into the American Football Conference and National Football Conference, with the Super Bowl pitting each conference's champion against the other. The Pittsburgh Steelers dominated the decade that followed, winning four Super Bowls between 1975 and 1980.

Nearly 93 million Americans watched a football match become a national holiday in January 1986.

The Chicago Bears' 46–10 demolition of the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XX on 26 January 1986 drew an estimated 92.57 million American viewers, a record at the time. The game cemented the Super Bowl's status as a de facto national holiday. By the mid-1980s, the broadcast had become as famous for its advertising as for the football itself, with companies paying increasingly staggering sums for 30-second commercial slots. The NFC would go on to win 13 consecutive Super Bowls from 1985 to 1997.

Viewers actually tuned in more during the break; Jackson didn't just fill the interval, he made it the main attraction.

Super Bowl XXVII at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on 31 January 1993 featured Michael Jackson's halftime performance, a watershed moment that redefined what the interval could be. Before Jackson, halftime shows were marching bands and Up with People. After him, they became global spectacles featuring the biggest names in music. The NFL had invited Jackson partly to combat viewers switching channels at half-time. It worked. Viewership during the break actually increased, and the halftime show became a cultural occasion in its own right.

Seven titles, five MVP honours; it all began with a 48-yard kick as the clock hit zero.

On 3 February 2002, second-year quarterback Tom Brady led the New England Patriots to a 20–17 victory over the heavily favoured St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI. Adam Vinatieri's 48-yard field goal as time expired sealed one of the great upsets. It was the first of Brady's seven Super Bowl victories, a run of dominance spanning nearly two decades that would see him named Super Bowl MVP five times. No player has shaped the modern Super Bowl era more profoundly.

Ninety-seven and a half million viewers watched an 18-0 Patriots side lose to a helmet and sheer nerve.

Super Bowl XLII on 3 February 2008 produced arguably the greatest upset in the game's history. The New York Giants defeated the 18–0 New England Patriots 17–14, denying them a perfect season. Eli Manning's escape from a near-sack and his pass to David Tyree, who pinned the ball against his helmet for a 32-yard reception, became known simply as the Helmet Catch. It remains the defining play of Super Bowl lore. The game drew 97.5 million viewers, then the most-watched Super Bowl ever.

Down 28 to 3 and somehow still victorious; Brady turned a near-certain defeat into the greatest overtime finish the Super Bowl has ever seen.

Super Bowl LI on 5 February 2017 at NRG Stadium in Houston rewrote the record books. The Atlanta Falcons led the New England Patriots 28–3 in the third quarter. What followed was the largest comeback in Super Bowl history. Tom Brady orchestrated a 31-point swing, forcing the first overtime in Super Bowl history and winning 34–28. Brady threw for 466 yards, a Super Bowl record, and was named MVP for the fourth time. The game is widely regarded as the greatest Super Bowl ever played.

More Americans watched Mahomes claim his third MVP than have ever watched anything else on television.

Super Bowl LVIII on 11 February 2024 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas saw the Kansas City Chiefs defeat the San Francisco 49ers 25–22 in overtime, becoming the first team to win consecutive Super Bowls since the Patriots in 2004 and 2005. Quarterback Patrick Mahomes was named MVP for the third time, cementing his place alongside Brady and Montana in the pantheon of Super Bowl greats. The game was the second Super Bowl to go to overtime and drew an estimated 123.4 million viewers, making it the most-watched television broadcast in American history.