Super Bowl I Postgame Press Conference Exclusive

History Published on : 1/16/2017

With so much hype surrounding the 50th Anniversary of Super Bowl I, the Pro Football of Fame is proud to exclusively release a rare audio recording of the Super Bowl I postgame press conference. In the recording, Hall of Fame Head Coach Vince Lombardi shares his candid thoughts on how the AFL matched up with the NFL.

“I have nothing to say,” said Lombardi after being baited by the media pundits, who demanded his reaction to the level of competition in the AFL. “[Kansas City Chiefs] a good football team but it doesn’t compare with the National Football League’s teams. That’s what you want me to say, I said it.”

The rare audio artifact was recorded by Dave Little of Canton, Ohio.      

The Hall of Fame recently sat down with Little, a former production manager for WAKR-TV in Akron, Ohio, for an exclusive one-on-one. What the Hall discovered was Little is the only individual with the CBS postgame audio recording from Super Bowl I.
 
“Because I love broadcasting,” explained Little on why he recorded the post-game show. “Back in that day I had no professional knowledge of broadcasting…I knew how to connect a tape recorder to the entrance of a television set. I could directly record the audio from the TV broadcast on to a reel to reel tape machine so I recorded the whole game and the post-game on quarter inch audio tape. I just put it away. I folded a box up and put it away in the house and kept it in climate control conditions.”
 
At the time of Super Bowl I, then known as the AFL-NFL World Championship Game, CBS and NBC shared the broadcasting rights for the game. CBS held the rights to broadcasting NFL games, while NBC had the rights to air AFL games. NBC paid $1 million for the rights to televise their first Super Bowl.
 
Both networks fought tooth-and-nail for ratings, but NBC emerged with a slightly larger audience. This remains the only joint broadcast in Super Bowl history.
 
In a bizarre twist, CBS and NBC did not preserve the broadcast copy of the game and as a result, the only televised copy in the world is owned by Troy Haupt, whom is a resident of North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
 
Haupt obtained the rich history from his dad whom he never met and left the rich artifacts for him as an heirloom. His Dad, Martin Haupt, taped the game. Unfortunately, Haupt never met his Dad and it’s still unclear as to why his father went to work on Jan. 15, 1967 and recorded the Green Bay Packers’ 35-10 win over the Chiefs.

Little felt it was important to preserve this piece of history, so he donated the tape to the Hall of Fame to keep in their archives.
 
Fans can listen to legendary announcers Pat Summerall and Curt Gowdy and Lombardi analyze and reflect on the Packers victory over the Chiefs.