Recent Visa commercials have showcased a group of men who have been to every single Super Bowl.
Every year, these four men get to experience the greatest sporting event in the world live. I, personally, cannot watch those commercials without getting a little jealous.
I know a lot of die-hard football fans who have never been to a Super Bowl. For them, getting the chance to see the big game live is almost equivalent in terms of unfulfillable dreams to winning the lottery.
And yet these men have found a way to get an annual ticket.
Believe it or not, however, there was a time when getting a ticket to the Super Bowl was not so difficult.
The year was 1967. Back then, the big game (well, as I will explain later, it was not seen as that big a game) was not officially called the Super Bowl.
Back then, the inaugural Super Bowl was known as the NFL-AFL World Championship Game, pitting the champion of the National Football League against the title holder of the American Football League. For the former league, the game was merely a chance to show the world that teams from the latter league don't belong on the same field as the more established NFL.
In the 90,000-plus seat Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, a crowd of 61,946 (including, of course the "Never Missed a Super Bowl Club") showed up at 1:15 p.m. PST to watch the grudge match between the NFL's Green Bay Packers and the AFL's Kansas City Chiefs.
The Packers just beat the Dallas Cowboys in a hard-fought NFL title game, winning the franchise's 10th NFL title and second in a row. For them, winning the NFL-AFL World Championship trophy would just put another notch on their belt.
According to Bob McGinn's The Ultimate Super Bowl Book, Green Bay wide receiver Max McGee was spotted by Bart Starr at about 7:30 a.m. stumbling into the team hotel following a late night out on the town. Of course, the 34-year-old wideout was not planning on playing.
But Boyd Dowler injured his right shoulder on the second play from scrimmage, thrusting McGee into action. McGee's late-night action didn't affect his performance too much, it turns out, as he caught a 37-yard touchdown pass to give the Packers the early 7-0 lead.
McGee caught both of Starr's touchdown passes that day, hauling in 13-yard score to put the Packers ahead 28-10 in the third quarter. He finished the game catching seven passes for 138 yards; not bad for a guy who got less than six hours of sleep, if any.
Starr was named the game's Most Valuable Player, completing 16-of-23 passes for 250 yards and finished the game with a quarterback rating of 116.2 as Green Bay blew out the Chiefs as expected 35-10.
The championship victory was put into perspective by Vince Lombardi shortly after the Packers returned home.
"I don't think [the Chiefs] are as good as the top teams in the National Football League," he said to a group of writers in his office. "They're a good team with fine speed, but I'd have to say NFL football is tougher. Dallas is a better team, and so are several others."
This quote is a symbol of how the NFL felt about the upstart AFL. But as it turns out, the Lombardi-led Packers were better at that time than any team in the AFL (or the NFL, for that matter) could offer.
As Broadway Joe's New York Jets and the Chiefs later proved the AFL's legitimacy, the Super Bowl grew from its roots as an annual grudge match between two football leagues and blossom into the most-watched event in America.
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