Hot air balloon crashes, battle reenactments, and a trash-talking newspaper editor made New Orleans’ first Super Bowl a wild affair!

Super Bowl LIX is just two weeks away! Those of us in and around New Orleans are excited to be hosting the biggest game in sports for a record-setting 11th NFL championship game—tied only with Miami. 

But, before we focus on New Orleans’ 11th time hosting, we wanted to roll back the clock and remember our first. It was Super Bowl IV, held 55 years ago on January 11, 1970.

A battle between two separate, rival leagues

Something that was interesting about the fourth iteration of the Super Bowl is that it was the first time the game was actually branded as the “Super Bowl” rather than the three previous years being billed as the “AFL-NFL World Championship game.”

Back then the game was played by teams from two completely separate leagues—think of the NFL of today playing against, for example, the Canadian Football League. 

For the first four Super Bowls, it was the champion of the American Football League (AFL), founded in 1960, against the winner of the NFL (National Football League), founded in 1920. The rivalry between these leagues was bitter, though the NFL was largely considered to be more talented. In the first two Super Bowls, the NFL’s Green Bay Packers pummeled their AFL opponents.

In Super Bowl III, however, Joe Namath of the underdog New York Jets guaranteed his AFL team would defeat the NFL’s Baltimore Colts. Even though the Colts were favored by a mind-blowing 18 points to defeat Namath’s team, the Jets won the game, creating a bit more of a feeling of parity between the leagues.

Super Bowl IV was set to take place at Tulane Stadium—the Superdome wouldn’t open for four more years—and the AFL team (the Kansas City Chiefs) was once again a big underdog (13.5 points) to the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings.

The rivalry was at an all-time high as the NFL wanted to avenge their loss of the previous year.

New Orleans’ last Super Bowl would actually be the final time that football’s biggest game was played between two rival leagues. The following season, the two leagues had merged. The teams had integrated into what is now the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC)—two conferences in one National Football League.

Rivalry between cities

The meeting to determine which city would host Super Bowl IV took place on March 19, 1969 in Palm Springs, California. At the time, the Super Bowl was thought of as a regional event. West Coast fans could attend the game in Los Angeles, the site of Super Bowl I, while East Coast fans would go to Miami, host of II and III.

Miami was considered the favorite to host Super Bowl IV, as well, but New Orleans was not ready to accept such a limited view of this growing championship event.

The meeting to decide the site included 26 league owners. The Crescent City sent a task force led by executive editor of the Times-Picayune, George Healy. Almost immediately, the group from New Orleans turned on both trash talk and charm.

Healy was reprimanded for continuously interrupting Miami mayor Steve Clark’s presentation. The Times-Picayune editor mocked the low attendance at Dolphins regular season games and went so far as to question whether the city of Miami was even interested in football.

Meanwhile, Healy brought jazz trumpeter Al Hirt and composer Hoagy Carmichal, both from New Orleans, to entertain football team owners at a party the night before the vote. Hirt told them he had three loves, “my horn, my team [the Saints], and my hometown,” even promising them a free halftime show should New Orleans win the bid.

In the end, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle considered the size of Tulane’s 80,985-seat stadium, the growing interest of football in New Orleans, and the desire to move the Super Bowl back to an NFL—instead of AFL—host city.

In what was thought of as a total coup at the time, New Orleans won the rights to host Super Bowl IV!

Cold weather, but hot entertainment

Something we’re all familiar with lately—uncharacteristically cold weather—descended on New Orleans the week before the game. The temperatures were so low that, by the time the teams arrived six days before the Super Bowl, the outdoor fountain at the Kansas City Chiefs’ downtown hotel had completely frozen over.

Adding a further chill on the lead-up to the event, NBC News reported that Chiefs starting quarterback Len Dawson was tied to a national gambling ring.

As the game neared, however, ice and tensions began to thaw. Temperature warmed and Dawson’s insistence he was innocent eventually led to federal authorities absolving him.

Then in came the celebrities. Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Walter Cronkite, Gene Autry, and moon-landing astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin all descended on the Big Easy for Super Bowl week.

The city was under a tornado warning on Super Bowl morning, and groundskeepers laid green-painted pecan shells and hay across the field to mitigate the damp playing surface. But, by 2:30pm kick-off, the temperature was up to 61 degrees and 80,562 fans (the most at a Super Bowl to date) packed the stadium.

The pregame show dazzled the crowd with the release of 3,000 pigeons and a jet flyover during a special rendition of the national anthem. A hot-air balloon carrying a Minnesota Vikings mascot wasn’t so effective. It failed to gain altitude, dragged across the field, and crashed directly into the stands. No one was injured, fortunately, but the game was delayed by about 10 minutes.

Halftime went smoother, and was far more extravagant than the Super Bowl had seen to date. Opera soprano Marguerite Piazza and Broadway star Carol Channing were the first real celebrity performers at a Super Bowl, kicking off one of America’s favorite sports traditions. During the same show, trumpeters Al Hirt and Doc Severinsen, along with the Southern University marching band, performed a musical tribute to New Orleans.

The musical performance, which honored New Orleans’ most famous streets then gave way to canons, muskets, and military uniforms during a reenactment of the Battle of New Orleans. The show concluded with a parade of southern ladies, a rendition of “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?” and a snapshot of a Mardi Gras parade featuring floats, inflatables, maskers, and brass bands.

Game time

The Battle of New Orleans was a faithful recreation, but the real firepower that day was demonstrated by the Kansas City Chiefs offense. 

The game was a matchup between two very different styles of play. The Vikings had won 12 straight regular season games before steamrolling through the NFL playoffs. They were known for a fearsome defense, led by their dominant Purple People Eater defensive line, that could wreak havoc on an opposing quarterback. On offense, they controlled games and tired their rivals by incessantly running the ball.

The Vikings played what was considered an old-school style of dominant football compared to the Chiefs. Kansas City was nearly the opposite, described as cutting edge both on and off the field. That began with recruitment. They were one of the first pro teams to look to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) for talent and their team featured 13 players from such schools including superstar Ots Taylor and Hall-of-Famer Buck Buchanan.

On the gridiron, the Chiefs were equally innovative. Their offense attack was diverse, utilizing shifts, motions, formations, and alignments. They used short, quick passes to neutralize the Vikings vaunted defensive line before they could reach the quarterback. Their defense was equally superb and was ranked the seventh best in football history according to a 2007 ESPN poll. 

The Chiefs jumped out to an impressive 16-0 lead after the first half, and won the game 23-7. 

Super Bowl IV was considered a huge win, not just for the Chiefs, but also for the city of New Orleans and the sport of football. In addition to the more than 80,500 fans in the seats, the game took in a record $3,817,872.69 in gross receipts. It was estimated that 60 million viewers watched the CBS broadcast of the game. 

It was such a success that New Orleans was awarded another Super Bowl just years later. Super Bowl VI would be the city’s second. We’ll write about that game—and the eight other Super Bowls hosted in the Crescent City since—next week!