The Super Bowl is the annual championship game of the National Football League (NFL). This game determines the best team in the league by pitting the American Football Conference and National Football Conference champions against each other. The 2011 Super Bowl will mark the 45th championship game in league history.
Pre-Super Bowl
The National Football League formed in 1922, and league champions were initially determined simply by which team had the best regular season record. From 1946 to 1949, the NFL regular season champions played the best team in the All-America Football Conference, a short-lived rival league.
First Super Bowls
From 1960 until 1965, the NFL's best team played the champion of the American Football League. In 1966, the leagues developed a merger agreement, and the game was named the NFL-AFL World Championship Game in 1966. The unofficial name of Super Bowl was used that year, but it did not become the official title of the game until 1969.
Merger with AFL
The Green Bay Packers, an NFL team, won the first two Super Bowls. However the third Super Bowl, in 1968, was won by the AFL's New York Jets. Two years later, the AFL and NFL officially merged into a 26-team league.
1970s and 1980s
During the first few decades of Super Bowl play, the game repeated stadiums often, as the Orange Bowl in Miami and Tulane Stadium in Louisiana played host several times. In 1978, Super Bowl XII became the only game in Super Bowl history to name two MVP winners. In 1982, Super Bowl XVI in Michigan was the first championship game to be held in a northern state.
1990s and 2000s
During the 1990s, the Buffalo Bills made Super Bowl history by appearing in four consecutive championship games and losing all four, including back-to-back losses to the Dallas Cowboys, who won three Super Bowls that decade. In the 2000s, the New England Patriots would win three Super Bowls, and Peyton and Eli Manning became the first brothers to be Super Bowl MVPs, as Peyton led the Indianapolis Colts to victory in 2007 and Eli led the New York Giants to a win in 2008.
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