Allegiant Stadium inLas Vegas will play host to the 2024 Super Bowl tonight.
'Super Bowl Sunday' is one of the biggest events on the sporting calendar, attracting millions of viewers from all over the world.
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The 'Big Game' has come a long way since the inaugural match in 1967 between the Kansas City Chiefs and Green Bay Packers.
Back then, it was originally called theAFL–NFL World Championship Game - so how did we end up with the Super Bowl name?
Why is it called the Super Bowl?
Before the Super Bowl era, the NFL was split up into two separate organisations - the National Football League (NFL), founded in 1920, and the American Football League (AFL), formed forty years later.
The NFL and AFL competed intensely for several years but eventually the pressure became too much for both factions to bear.
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In 1966, the NFL and AFL announced a merger that would see them compete in separate regular-season schedules until 1970, but have a championship title game between their two best teams from the 1966 season onwards.
That's where the AFL-NFL World Championship Game moniker came from - but it was long, uninspiring, and failed to capture the spectacle the event would later become.
The sport needed something snappier, and so NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle came up with names like the 'Big One' and 'Pro Bowl'.
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The word 'Bowl' had already become synonymous with big football games throughout the early 20th century due to the bowl-shaped arenas where college football was often played.
The Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl, andCotton Bowl,which still exist today, were all created in the 20s and 30s and served as part of inspiration for the Super Bowl.
However, AFL founder and Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt is responsible for the 'Super' part after noticing his children playing with a toy called a 'Super Ball'.
Hunt's son, Lamar Hunt Jr, once said, "My dad was in an owner’s meeting. They were trying to figure out what to call the last game, the championship game.
"I don’t know if he had the ball with him as some reports suggest. My dad said, 'Well, we need to come up with a name, something like the ‘Super Bowl.'
"And then he said, 'Actually, that’s not a very good name. We can come up with something better.'
"But 'Super Bowl' stuck in the media and word of mouth."
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Stick it did, and there's even a classic Wham-O Super Ball on display at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, to honour the toy's lasting impact.
The Super Bowl officially started using its name in the fourth championship contest in 1970.
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The league retroactively called the 1967 AFL-NFL World Championship Game between the Packers and Chiefs 'Super Bowl I'.
The first time theSuper Bowlmoniker was used for the 'Big Game' was in 1969 for Super Bowl III when Joe Namath's New York Jets upset the NFL champion Baltimore Colts.
The first four Super Bowls from 1967 to 1970 were played before the merger, with the NFL and AFL each winning two.
The league added a roman numeral behind the name for the 1970 season with Super Bowl V.
The rest, as they say, is history, and since the inception of the Super Bowl the NFC leads the AFC in wins 29–28.
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The defending champion Kansas City Chiefs will be looking to even up that up for the AFC this year in Super Bowl LVIII (58).
Mahomes and Kelce are looking to go back-to-back as champions and face the San Francisco 49ers for all the marbles.
