Superbowl

[Dave Wilton]

> This brings up the purely academic question: was it football
> or the networks
> that invented the phrase "Super Bowl"?

Not "the networks," but perhaps "the media." The TV contract for the first
Superbowl wasn't granted until mid-December 1966, well after use of the term
was established.

As to who invented it, as always one has to rely on the cites. Neither the
OED cite or the one Barry provided uses the quotes on the term. To me this
indicates that these aren't the first uses of the term. I expect that
earlier cites will turn up and that the term was probably independently
coined by a number of sportswriters. The NFL officials didn't object to it
and eventually, some years later, embraced it.

And was the hype for the first Superbowl all that big? (Being 3-years old at
the time, my own memories are suspect.)  I do know that about a third of the
seats in the LA Coliseum were empty and the TV broadcast was blacked out in
LA, so if there was a lot of hype it didn't work too well.