The Super Bowl is the annual American football game that determines the champion of the National Football League (NFL). The game culminates a season that begins in the previous calendar year, and is the conclusion of the NFL playoffs. The winner receives the Vince Lombardi Trophy. The contest is held in an American city, chosen three to four years beforehand, [1] usually at warm-weather sites or domed stadiums. [2] Since January 1971, the winner of the American Football Conference (AFC) Championship Game has faced the winner of the National Football Conference (NFC) Championship Game in the culmination of the NFL playoffs.
Before the 1970 merger between the American Football League (AFL) and the National Football League (NFL), the two leagues met in four such contests. The first two were marketed as the "AFL–NFL World Championship Game", but were also casually referred to as "the Super Bowl game" during the television broadcast. [3] Super Bowl III in January 1969 was the first such game that carried the "Super Bowl" moniker in official marketing; the names "Super Bowl I" and "Super Bowl II" were retroactively applied to the first two games. [4]
A total of 20 franchises, including teams that have relocated to another city or changed their name, have won the Super Bowl. [5] There are four NFL teams that have never appeared in a Super Bowl: the Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, Jacksonville Jaguars, and Houston Texans, though both the Browns (1950, 1954, 1955, 1964) and Lions (1935, 1952, 1953, 1957) had won NFL Championship Games prior to the creation of the Super Bowl in the 1966 season.
The 1972 Dolphins capped off the only perfect season in NFL history with their victory in Super Bowl VII. Only two franchises have ever won the Super Bowl while hosting at their home stadiums: the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl LV and the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LVI.
Numbers in parentheses in the table are Super Bowl appearances as of the date of that Super Bowl and are used as follows:
(1966–1969) | (1970–present) |
---|---|
National Football League (NFL) | National Football Conference (NFC) |
NFL champion n (4, 2–2) | NFC champion N (54, 27–27) |
American Football League (AFL) | American Football Conference (AFC) |
AFL champion a (4, 2–2) | AFC champion A (54, 27–27) |
W Indicates a team that made the playoffs as a wild card team (rather than by winning a division).
Game | Date/ | Away team | Home team | Venue | City | Ref |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
LIX | February 9, 2025 (2024) [sb 18] | 2024–25 AFC champion A | 2024–25 NFC champion N | Caesars Superdome (8) [sb 6] | New Orleans, Louisiana (11) | [80] |
LX | February 8, 2026 (2025) [sb 18] | 2025–26 NFC champion N | 2025–26 AFC champion A | Levi's Stadium (2) | Santa Clara, California (3) | |
LXI | February 14, 2027 (2026) [sb 18] | 2026–27 AFC champion A | 2026–27 NFC champion N | SoFi Stadium (2) | Inglewood, California (9) | |
LXII | February 13, 2028 (2027) [sb 18] | 2027–28 NFC champion N | 2027–28 AFC champion A | Mercedes-Benz Stadium (2) | Atlanta, Georgia (4) |
Eight franchises have won consecutive Super Bowls, one of which (Pittsburgh) has accomplished it twice:
Although no franchise to date has won three Super Bowls in a row, several have had eras of sustained success, nearly accomplishing a three-peat:
Three franchises have lost consecutive Super Bowls:
The Buffalo Bills have the most consecutive appearances with four from 1990 to 1993. The Miami Dolphins (1971–1973) and New England Patriots (2016–2018) are the only other teams to have at least three consecutive appearances. All three teams with three or more consecutive Super Bowl appearances are in the AFC East division. Including those three, 11 teams have at least two consecutive appearances. The Dallas Cowboys are the only team with three separate streaks (1970–1971, 1977–1978, and 1992–1993). The Green Bay Packers, Pittsburgh Steelers, Denver Broncos, [n 1] and New England Patriots have each had two separate consecutive appearances. The Kansas City Chiefs are the most recent team to appear in consecutive Super Bowls, playing in Super Bowl LVII and Super Bowl LVIII. The full listing of teams with consecutive appearances is below in order of first occurrence; winning games are in bold:
The following teams have faced each other more than once in the Super Bowl: [n 2]
NFLn/NFCN team | AFLa/AFCA team |
Pre-merger NFLn team : Post-merger AFCA team [n 5] |
In the sortable table below, franchises are ordered first by number of wins, followed by the total number of appearances, and finally by the total number of points scored for the franchise throughout all appearances. Included in the table are all of the team names that each franchise has had since the 1966 season, a.k.a. the start of the Super Bowl era.
Eight teams have appeared in the Super Bowl without ever winning. In descending order of number of appearances and then years since their last appearance, they are:
Four current teams have never reached the Super Bowl (shown in bold below). Two of them (Jacksonville and Houston) joined the NFL relatively recently, and there are an additional eight teams whose Super Bowl appearance droughts began prior to 2002 (the year Houston joined the NFL). The other two teams that have never appeared in a Super Bowl (Cleveland and Detroit) both held NFL league championships prior to Super Bowl I in the 1966 NFL season. [n 7] Teams are listed below according to the length of their current Super Bowl droughts (as of the end of the 2023 season, after Super Bowl LVIII):
The Denver Broncos are a professional American football team based in Denver. The Broncos compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The team is headquartered in Dove Valley, Colorado.
The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. The Patriots compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The Patriots play home games at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, which is 22 miles (35 km) southwest of Boston. The franchise is owned by Robert Kraft, who purchased the team in 1994. As of 2023, the Patriots are tied for the third-most valuable sports team in the world and have sold out every home game since 1994.
The Super Bowl is the annual league championship game of the National Football League (NFL) of the United States. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the game has been played on the second Sunday in February. Prior Super Bowls were played on Sundays in early to mid-January from 1967 to 1978, late January from 1979 to 2003, and the first Sunday of February from 2004 to 2021. Winning teams are awarded the Vince Lombardi Trophy, named after the eponymous coach who won the first two Super Bowls. Because the NFL restricts the use of its "Super Bowl" trademark, it is frequently referred to as the "big game" or other generic terms by non-sponsoring corporations. The day the game is held is commonly referred to as "Super Bowl Sunday" or simply "Super Sunday".
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Super Bowl XXX was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Dallas Cowboys and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Pittsburgh Steelers to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for the 1995 season. The Cowboys defeated the Steelers by the score of 27–17, winning their fifth Super Bowl in team history. The game was played on January 28, 1996, at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona, the first time the Super Bowl was played in the Phoenix metropolitan area.
The NFC Championship Game is the annual championship game of the National Football Conference (NFC) and one of the two semifinal playoff games of the National Football League (NFL), the largest professional American football league in the world. The game is played on the last Sunday in January by the two remaining playoff teams, following the NFC postseason's first two rounds. The NFC champion then advances to face the winner of the AFC Championship Game in the Super Bowl.
The National Football League playoffs for the 1971 season began on December 25, 1971. The postseason tournament concluded with the Dallas Cowboys defeating the Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl VI, 24–3, on January 16, 1972, at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, Louisiana.
The American Football Conference – Northern Division or AFC North is one of the four divisions of the American Football Conference (AFC) in the National Football League (NFL). The division was created after the restructuring of the 2002 NFL season when the league realigned divisions after expanding to 32 teams. The division consists of the Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, and Pittsburgh Steelers. This is the only division in the NFL in which no member team has hosted a Super Bowl in their stadiums. The division, however, has won eight Super Bowl titles in total.
The National Football Conference – Eastern Division or NFC East is one of the four divisions of the National Football Conference (NFC) in the National Football League (NFL). It has four members: the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, and Washington Commanders.
Super Bowl XLVI was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion New York Giants and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion New England Patriots to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for the 2011 season. The Giants defeated the Patriots by the score of 21–17. The game was played on February 5, 2012, at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, the first time that the Super Bowl was played in Indiana.
The 2009 NFL season was the 90th season in the history of the National Football League (NFL). The 50th anniversary of the original eight charter members of the American Football League was celebrated during this season.
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The Cowboys–Steelers rivalry is a rivalry in the NFL. The Cowboys currently lead the all-time series 18–16. The two teams met in the Super Bowl three times, the most of any two teams. CBS Sports ranked this rivalry No. 2 of the best NFL rivalries of the 1970s. As the Cowboys are in the NFC and the Steelers are in the AFC, they usually only meet at least once every four years and at least once every eight seasons at each team's home stadium, sometimes more often if the two teams finish in the same place in their respective divisions in the year they do not play one another but met two years prior, play in the preseason, or meet in the Super Bowl.
The Baltimore Colts were a professional American football team that played in Baltimore from 1953 to 1983, when owner Robert Irsay moved the franchise to Indianapolis. The team was named for Baltimore's history of horse breeding and racing. It was the second incarnation of the Baltimore Colts, the first having played for three years in the All-America Football Conference and one in the National Football League (NFL). This Baltimore Colts played their home games at Memorial Stadium.