First played in 1967 with the official title, “The First AFL-NFL World Championship Game," the Super Bowl was given its current name two years later when a high-bouncing consumer toy, the "superball," inspired Lamar Hunt to suggest it to Pete Rozelle, then commissioner of the NFL. In addition, in 1969, the New York Jets of the upstart younger and less respected of the two leagues became the first AFC team to win the Super Bowl, signaling a new parity between the leagues. The first two Championship Games had been won easily by the Green Bay Packers under legendary coach Vince Lombardi. When AFC teams won Super Bowls III and IV (NFL marketing also settled early on the monumental-looking Roman numerals for each year's game), the status of the Super Bowl as football's pinnacle was irrevocably established. Sports had been a staple of television programming since the first telecast of a Columbia University baseball game on May 17, 1939, by the National Broadcasting Com­ pany's (NBC's) experimental station W2XBS. A professional football game was telecast later that year in which the Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Philadelphia Eagles 23 to 14, and football in ensuing decades established itself as an ideal sport for the particular framing, presentation, and pace of television.

Super Bowl audience size and advertising costs became the highest of any television programming in the early 1970s. All the 10 top-rated television programs of all time are Super Bowls. Annual viewership in the United States has exceeded 130 million for recent Super Bowls, and ratings have usually exceeded 40.0 with a 60 share. To reach the Super Bowl audience, advertising costs were under $100,000 for a 30-second spot for the first half dozen games, but three decades later 30 seconds of airtime cost more than $2 million. A segment of the audience watches primarily to view the expensively produced advertisements being rolled out for the first time in the Super Bowl telecast, and the new ads are instantly evaluated and discussed in news- papers, talk shows, and elsewhere. Among the most famous of the one-time-only Super Bowl ads is the 1984 Macintosh "Brave New World" ad, in which a lone dissenter charges forward to smash a huge television screen transmitting Big Brother dictates to the docile masses. The advertisement was kept under wraps prior to the game and never aired again commercially despite its storied success. Advertisers consider the Super Bowl audience ideal because of its size, inclusive demographics, and event atmosphere.

Pregame and halftime entertainment at the Super Bowl have grown from standard football fare to major extravaganzas. The first Super Bowls featured university marching bands playing the "Star Spangled Banner" to open the game and performing numbers on the field between halves. As the prominence of the Super Bowl became more massive, the anthem was given over to celebrities; past performers have included Mariah Carey, the Dixie Chicks, Jewel, Cher, Billy Joel, Aaron Neville, and Whitney Houston. The halftime ceremony also grew into a massively expensive and complex entertainment extravaganza featuring the biggest names in American popular music, including No Doubt, Shania Twain, Backstreet Boys, Aerosmith, N'Sync, U2, and Britney Spears. The game is packaged with extravagant features: breathless analysis during the preceding week, pregame specials, grandiose player introductions, the massively produced national anthem with jet flyovers and fireworks, a blimp hovering overhead like a holy spirit, aerial pictures of the stadium, tightly edited fast-paced openings and bridges, verbal hyperbole by the announcers, and an overall pageantry and spectacle traditionally reserved for the most important and sacred of public occasions. The network that has bought rights to the game employs several dozen cameras and nearly as many videotape machines to capture the action. Net­ work program promotions crowd in next to the pricey commercials, and the whole package is transmitted overseas to American troops who are, in turn, shown watching the game at a preselected post in Afghanistan, Iraq, or another far-flung American military location.

The game  is not  played  at either  team's  home site but rather in a neutral, usually fair-weather city, most commonly New Orleans, Miami, Los Angeles. The first  35  televised  Super  Bowls occurred  in January, shifting over the years from mid- to late January, but the league now leans toward an early February date. This is a prime television period because of winter weather in many parts of the country and the absence of competing events. The date also allows the NFL to complete a 16-game regular season, with a bye week for each team, and four rounds of playoff games. The winning team is awarded the Lombardi Trophy, made by Tiffany & Co. of New York and valued at $12,000; each winning team member receives a Super Bowl ring valued at $5,000 and a payment larger than the median annual income for Americans. The winners become heroes to millions and later pay a visit to the White House to meet the president.

Critics have noted that America's number one media event features a male-only game, although the television coverage incorporates women and the NFL markets itself strategically to women. The game is also physically violent compared to most sports. African­ American athletes are very overrepresented on NFL rosters compared to their proportion in the total population, but they are underrepresented among team owners. The Super Bowl attracts interest outside North America largely as a curiosity. Despite NFL marketing,The Super Bowl is primarily a television event, but in the days preceding the game, it also generates television specials, newspaper pullout sections, magazine cover stories, special meal recipes, commercial product tie-ins, celebrity features, and every other accoutrements that accompanies extreme public attention. Rising above politics, religion, or other partisan loyalties, it has become virtually mandatory viewing, an occasion for major celebrations with family and friends, and the most prominent secular high holiday in American culture.