Long Lost Tape of First Super Bowl Found

Added on Feb 05, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

NFL

Unless you were in the stadium that day, if you tell me that you’ve seen Super Bowl I in its entirety chances are you’re lying. It’s well known that despite the game airing on both NBC and CBS on January 15, 1967 that neither network preserved a tape of the broadcast. Obviously this game’s result is well known–and ended with the Green Bay Packers beating the Kansas City Chiefs by a final score of 35-10. The historical implications of the first matchup between the AFL and NFL champions obviously goes far beyond the game itself or even the sport of football–it literally transformed the way that sports are broadcast and promoted in the United States and had a permanent impact on industries as far ranging as entertainment and sports betting. Within a few years, players anxious to bet on Super Bowl action had made the event the single most important day of the year for bookmakers.

So unless you were old enough to be one of the 61,946 people at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum that day, or one of the fans who watched it live on NBC or CBS you’ve never seen the game in its entirety. The only footage that has survived is sideline footage shot by NFL Films and roughly 30 seconds of footage CBS located a number of years ago. 26.8 million people watched one of the most significant games in the history of the NFL live, but there was no video of the game whatsoever.

The Wall Street Journal reported on the story, and explained how one of the most important sporting events ever broadcast was presumably lost to the ages:

It seems preposterous now, in the DVR age, that a telecast shown by two major networks could go missing. But in 1967, “people just didn’t have video recorders at home,” Mr. Simon explains. He says the networks didn’t develop consistent policies for preserving programs until the 1970s and that while they did a good job of preserving prime-time programs, other shows–daytime shows, morning shows, and sports–weren’t usually preserved at all. Representatives from both CBS and NBC confirmed the networks do not have copies of their broadcasts.

The elusiveness of the first Super Bowl broadcast made the tape a highly sought after item:

HBO executive Rick Bernstein, who produced a two-part history of sports television in 1991, is one of many who have searched for a tape. He says his team chased numerous leads, from a reported copy in Cuba to rumors that Hugh Hefner might have recorded the game on a videotape machine in the Playboy Mansion. Nothing turned up. “It’s the holy grail,” Mr. Bernstein says.

But due to recently developments, the ‘holy grail’ may have been located:

The long search may finally be over. The Paley Center for Media in New York, which had searched for the game footage for some time, has restored what it believes to be a genuine copy of the CBS broadcast. The 94-minute tape, which has never been shown to the public, was donated to the center by its owner in return for having it restored. It was originally recorded on bulky two-inch video and had been stored in an attic in Pennsylvania for nearly 38 years, the Paley Center says.

Doug Warner, the Paley Center’s director of engineering, remembers the day when the unthinkable happened. “This guy showed up with a shopping bag that had Super Bowl I in it.”

The tape has been restored and although its rough in spots the fact it exists at all is pretty incredible. Unfortunately, you might not be able to see it for awhile. The owner of the tape contacted the NFL who responded by claiming that they own the exclusive copyright to the tape–even though they never bothered to preserve it. For now, you’ll have to make do with a brief video clip and some still shots.