In 1967 NBC Was One of Two Networks to Air the First Super Bowl: Which Teams Played, and How a Joint Broadcast Worked

The teams were the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs. They met on January 15, 1967, at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and Green Bay won 35–10. The game is officially the AFL-NFL World Championship Game, retroactively Super Bowl I. NBC held the rights to the AFL's Chiefs, CBS held the rights to the NFL's Packers, and both aired the same feed. The answer is simple; the broadcast mechanics behind it are not, and they explain why no complete recording of the game is known to survive.

How a Two-Network Broadcast Split One Game

The dual broadcast existed because of a contract problem, not a technical one. In 1964 the NFL signed CBS as its national television partner. In 1965 the rival American Football League signed NBC. When the two leagues agreed in June 1966 to merge and stage an annual championship, each network already owned rights to one of the participating franchises. Neither could be shut out without breaching its deal, so the solution was to let both carry the game, each using its own announcers and graphics on a shared video feed.

The mechanics were more complicated than a simulcast sounds. CBS and NBC each produced their own pregame and halftime coverage with separate crews and sponsors. For the game itself, the two networks used a "dual feed" arrangement: a single set of cameras supplied video that both networks could take, while each network inserted its own commercials and its own audio. CBS's lead broadcast team was Ray Scott, Jack Whitaker, and Frank Gifford. NBC's was Curt Gowdy and Paul Christman. A separate radio broadcast also aired, so the game reached audiences through three audio productions at once.

Why does this matter to the question of which teams played? Because the network split is the only reason the matchup had two national carriers rather than one. The Packers were the NFL champion, finishing 12–2 and beating the Dallas Cowboys 34–27 in the NFL title game at the Cotton Bowl on January 1, 1967. The Chiefs were the AFL champion, finishing 11–2–1 and beating the Buffalo Bills 31–7 in the AFL title game at Buffalo's War Memorial Stadium. Each team arrived as the best of a separate ten-team league, which is the structural reason the first Super Bowl pitted leagues rather than conferences.

Quantified Context: Ticket Prices, TV Reach, and the Missing Recording

The scale of the first Super Bowl looks modest against later games but was large for 1967. The Coliseum seated roughly 93,000 for football, and attendance was reported at about 61,946, leaving visible empty seats in a venue built for the Olympics. Tickets were priced at USD 12, USD 10, and USD 6 by seat category, an inexpensive gate by modern standards. The game kicked off at about 1:15 p.m. Pacific time and was played in sunshine, which mattered because the Coliseum had no roof and the broadcast depended on natural light.

Television reach was the bigger number. The combined CBS and NBC audience has been estimated at roughly 51 million viewers, a figure widely repeated in broadcast histories rather than precisely audited. Because the two networks aired the game simultaneously in most markets, a household chose one channel, and the total counts unique viewers across both. That dual carriage is a statistical quirk: a modern Super Bowl draws one network's audience, so comparisons between 1967 and later years are not like for like.

Then there is the recording problem. Neither network is known to have preserved a complete broadcast of the game. What survives are fragments: portions of the NBC radio call, some film and videotape excerpts, and clips held by archives and collectors. A commonly cited explanation is that networks routinely erased or reused two-inch quadruplex videotape in that era because the tape was expensive, roughly USD 200 to USD 300 per reel. The result is a professional caveat worth stating plainly: the most-watched American sports broadcast of its year is, in complete form, effectively lost. The counterintuitive detail is that a game seen by tens of millions was preserved less completely than a local high school film reel from the same decade.

Timeline: From Merger Agreement to Kickoff

The timeline makes one point clear. The merger announcement came in June 1966, but the broadcast arrangement was settled only days before kickoff. That late decision is why the first game's television presentation looks improvised: the two networks had months, not years, to plan a joint production.

Edge Cases and Misconceptions About the First Super Bowl

Several persistent errors attach to this game, and each is easy to correct.

The name: it was not officially called the Super Bowl at kickoff. It was the AFL-NFL World Championship Game, and "Super Bowl" was a nickname popularized by Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt before the game, then adopted officially later. The trophy: the winning team did not receive the trophy later called the Vince Lombardi Trophy in 1967, because it was not named for Lombardi until after his death in 1970. The network count: NBC was one of two networks, but it was not the primary rights holder for the game as a whole. NBC's claim came through the Chiefs and the AFL, not through the championship itself. The venue: the game was not played at a neutral site chosen for fairness in the modern sense. It was staged in Los Angeles largely for weather and capacity, and the Coliseum was the home of the Rams. The scoreline's shape: Green Bay led only 14–10 at halftime, and the game turned on second-half adjustments and turnovers, not a blowout from the start. The 35–10 final is more lopsided than the first half.

The professional caveat that follows from these points is about sourcing. Much of what circulates about Super Bowl I comes from retrospective accounts, not from a surviving broadcast. Attendance, scoring, and statistics are well documented in league records. Broadcast minutiae, such as exact commercial counts and local blackout decisions, are less reliably recorded, and claims about them should be treated as reconstructions.

How the Two-Network Model Compares With Later Arrangements

The comparison shows the first game as an outlier. The dual-network model was a one-off forced by competing contracts, not a template. From Super Bowl II onward, the game aired on a single network under the rotating agreement, and the modern pattern of one broadcast plus streaming simulcasts is a distant descendant of that simplification. The 1967 arrangement has never been repeated for a Super Bowl.

Practical Actions for Verifying Super Bowl I Claims

If you are checking a fact about this game for an article, a class, or a trivia dispute, the sequence below resolves most questions quickly.

Separate the question into game facts and broadcast facts. Game facts, including teams, date, score, and MVP, are settled in league records and box scores. Broadcast facts need archival support. Confirm the teams and score against an official league record before anything else. The Packers and Chiefs, the 35–10 score, and Bart Starr as MVP are the stable anchors. Treat viewership figures as estimates. The commonly cited combined audience of about 51 million is a reconstruction, not a metered count, and should be attributed as an estimate. Check any claim of a complete game recording against archival holdings before repeating it. If a source asserts a full broadcast exists, ask where it is held. When comparing 1967 audiences to modern ones, state the dual-network difference explicitly. A single-network modern rating and a two-network 1967 estimate measure different things. Use the retroactive naming convention carefully. Calling the game Super Bowl I is correct modern usage, but the on-air name in 1967 was the AFL-NFL World Championship Game.

The threshold that matters most is the distinction between documented and reconstructed. Scores and dates cross that threshold; audience totals and broadcast details often do not. Applying the split consistently prevents the most common errors in retellings of the game.

Limitations: What the Record Cannot Settle

The record supports the core answer without ambiguity: the Green Bay Packers played the Kansas City Chiefs, and NBC was one of two networks because it held the AFL's television rights while CBS held the NFL's. Beyond that core, the evidence thins in specific, predictable ways.

The absence of a complete broadcast limits what can be said about the telecast itself. Claims about camera counts, commercial timing, and halftime production rest on memory and secondary accounts, not on a viewable master. Audience numbers are estimates built from partial ratings data, not census counts. Even the merger timeline has contested details, including how early the two leagues discussed a championship game before the June 1966 announcement.

What can be concluded is narrow and firm. The game happened on January 15, 1967. The Packers won 35–10. Two networks carried it under separate contracts, each tied to one of the participating leagues. Everything else about the broadcast is best described as reconstructed history, and that limit is itself the most useful thing to know when the game comes up.