Super Bowl, in U.S. professional gridiron football, the championship game of the National Football League (NFL), played by the winners of the league’s American Football Conference and National Football Conference each January or February. The game is hosted by a different city each year.
The game grew out of the merger of the NFL and rival American Football League (AFL) in 1966. The agreement called for an end-of-season championship game, and, although the merger was not finalized until 1970, the first such game, then called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game, was played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on January 15, 1967. Broadcast on two television networks and played before less than a sellout crowd, the game saw the NFL’s Green Bay Packers defeat the AFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, 35–10. The name “Super Bowl” first appeared in 1969, as did the use of Roman numerals, which, because the game is played in a different year from the season it culminates, are used to designate the individual games. Continue reading at Britannica
