The 2023 Superbowl event is veering ever closer with this year’s contest sure to bring about a plethora of eccentric plays and moments that will live down in history for years to come, with the Superbowl being widely viewed as one of the world’s greatest sporting events for various insightful reasons.
There are hardly any major sporting events that can match the sheer level of hype and pent-up emotion that Superbowl weekend provides as the two remaining sides from both rivalling conferences in the NFL compete for a chance to lift the coveted Vince Lombardi trophy.
The event draws in over a hundred million national and international viewers every single year, which is sure to be replicated ahead of this year’s upcoming event between two NFL juggernauts.
This year will mark the 57th iteration of the Superbowl game as the NFCs Philadelphia Eagles square off against the AFCs Kansas City Chiefs with the winner taking home the prestigious honor of labelling themselves as world champions.
Ahead of the contest, the latest Super bowl odds 2023 state that the Eagles will enter this game as the major favorite at 7/5 outright over the Chiefs who are ranked at 8/15. Both teams enjoying a tremendous NFL regular season and playoff run thanks to their major draw in star power and coaching staff.
Before the highly anticipated Superbowl LVII kick-off, most newcomer NFL fans may voice their interest into how the Superbowl was formulated back in the 1960s and what teams were the true stand-out candidates that helped forge the event into the sporting phenomenon that it is known by today.
- The merger between the AFL and NFL:
While fans will be acutely aware of how the NFL is structured today, the league was initially involved in a competitive dispute against its rivalling football league (the AFL) during the late 1950s.
The NFL featured several notable teams who are still competing today, yet they would voice their unwillingness to expand to the AFL which greatly frustrated a number of the rivalling league’s governing bodies.
After years of bitter competition, the NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle and AFL franchise owner Lamar Hunt of the Kansas City Chiefs, would officially negotiate a merger agreement between both leagues that would ultimately formulate the NFL that we all know and love today.
As part of the merger, both leagues would be split into two different conferences (NFC and AFC) with the top ranked teams earning qualification for the playoffs which would determine who would stand a chance at advancing to the newly established Superbowl.
The Superbowl game would showcase the best team from the NFC and AFC competing for a chance to claim world championship status, which has remained a yearly tradition since the game’s first iteration back in 1967.
- The Superbowl throughout the years:
The very first Superbowl game took place on the 15th of January 1967 between the Green Bay Packers of the NFC and the Kansas City Chiefs of the AFC, with the Packers winning 35-10 and becoming the first team to complete this feat across two seasons as they defeated the Oakland Raiders the following year.
The first AFC team (or AFL representative) to win the Superbowl came the very next season as the New York Jets defeated the Baltimore Colts 16-7.
In the years following this recent success, the event has garnered a widespread amount of popularity and intrigue from fans across the nation and the entire globe, with various Superbowl’s now often drawing in crowds at maximum capacity and TV viewership numbers that rival any major yearly broadcast.
Some of the most notable teams that paved the way for the event’s success in the years following the initial outings include the fabled 1972 Miami Dolphins who became the first undefeated regular season team to win the trophy, the various incarnations of the late 1980s to early 1990s San Francisco 49ers and the three-time dynasty winning Dallas Cowboys team of the 1990s.
Throughout the 2000s, the Superbowl has been mainly merited towards the Tom Brady led New England Patriots dynasty, with plenty of high-octane encounters to enjoy such as the famous helmet catch of Superbowl XLII or the infamous 28-3 comeback at Superbowl LI which remains as the only rendition of the event that saw the game go to Overtime.
There have been plenty of excellent contests featuring a plethora of the NFL’s all-time greatest names with some of the most notable including the likes of the aforementioned Tom Brady, Joe Montana, Peyton Manning, Steve Young and Jerry Rice amongst others.
This year’s event will include a sublime QB showdown between former league and Superbowl MVP Patrick Mahomes, taking on the rejuvenated Jalen Hurts who has led the Eagles to the best record in the NFL this season after a dramatic turnaround campaign.
This event is sure to bring about a wide-scale amount of fanfare and interest from all corners of the globe as the next generation of NFL talent is now ready to mark their names in the history books alongside the very best of all time.
