The first big game was almost lost to history.
On Jan. 15, 1967, the NFL-AFL showdown later known as Super Bowl I kicked off at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Led by coach Vince Lombardi and MVP quarterback Bart Starr, the Green Bay Packers dominated the Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10, during a lopsided affair that was broadcast on both NBC and CBS. More than 50 million Americans tuned in.
Sadly, neither NBC nor CBS saved master tapes of the broadcast, and the game was doomed to never be played again.
“The networks really did not preserve sports in the late 60s,” Ron Simon, the curator at New York’s Paley Center for Media, told The Post.
Fortunately, the Midtown, Manhattan-based nonprofit was gifted the only known recording of Super Bowl I from an unexpected source. It will screen for the first time on February 10 as part of its “Beyond the Big Game” exhibit, which runs through March 3. The showcase, created with help from the NFL and Pro Football Hall of Fame, features more than 150 iconic photos, a treasure trove of memorabilia and viral commercials culled from nearly 60 years of play.
But, the broadcast of the first Super Bowl is particularly special.
“It is indeed the first public screening of the Super Bowl,” Simon said of the upcoming event, characterizing the footage as the “holy grail” of sports broadcasts.
It was captured by pure happenstance. In 1967, Martin Haupt was a Pennsylvania engineer who wasn’t involved in the game’s broadcast. But the technician, who repaired and managed television equipment, had the gadgetry and expertise to record the game on 2-inch tapes.
In the late 1960s, recording any program or live event on television was “very difficult” for the average viewer, Simon said. “You needed professional technology. We’re very fortunate that an engineer in Scranton who took care of 2-inch tapes decided to make a copy of it.”
The extraordinary recording by Haupt, who died in 1977, sat undisturbed for decades in an attic of the family’s home in Shamokin, Pennsylvania. In 2016, Haupt’s son, Troy, publicly announced he had inherited the footage and donated the tapes to the museum.
It’s unclear why Haupt recorded the broadcast.
“We don’t know much about him,” Simon said. “His son was willed these tapes, it was an inheritance and they were kept in the attic. [Troy] didn’t know his father that well, so we don’t know what the actual preserver of these tapes was thinking when he recorded it.”
The Paley Museum meticulously restored and digitized the original footage.
“Our mission was to make it as close to the way it was seen and heard by millions of people in 1967,” Simon said. “Obviously, there were some technical challenges since the tape was stored in an attic for many years.”
The two hours of footage don’t capture the entire game, but lucky viewers can catch gridiron greats like Packers coach Vince Lombardi and league commissioner Pete Rozelle.
“Haupt wanted to keep as much of the game as possible,” Simon said. “He got most of the first half – he would stop and start – but halftime is missing, as well as some of the third quarter. But he did get the final celebration in the locker room.” Several commercials, including many for cigarettes and beer, are also included in recording.
“It’s a great look at what 1967 was like. You really do get a feel of what that game looked like,” “Simon said of the footage, which is in color but would have been viewed by many on black-and-white TVs. “Anyone interested in the earliest preservation of television sports would want to see this.”
For tickets, go to PaleyCenter.org/events.
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