Lamar Hunt surveys the future of football in 1967 in the Kansas City stadium. Photo: Shel Hershorn/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Super Bowl fans have Dallas to thank for its snappy name.
Why it matters: The National Football League, divided among the American Football Conference and the National Football Conference, would not exist in its current form without Dallas native Lamar Hunt.
Driving the news: A team with Dallas roots — the Kansas City Chiefs — plays one of the Dallas Cowboys' biggest rivals — the Philadelphia Eagles — on Sunday.
Flashback: Dallas businessmen Hunt and Clint Murchison Jr. were both courting the NFL in the 1950s to add a Dallas franchise.
Hunt's requests were denied, so he formed the American Football League in 1959 to rival the NFL and founded the Dallas Texans. Murchison's NFL-backed Dallas Cowboys debuted around the same time.
After three years, the Dallas Texans moved to Kansas City and were renamed the Chiefs.
Fun fact: The AFC Championship trophy is named after Lamar Hunt.
The intrigue: Hunt and Murchison's manager met in secret in Dallas, including at a Love Field parking lot, to hash out the AFL and NFL merger.
They also reportedly discussed the beginnings of Monday Night Football and the Super Bowl, per the Dallas Morning News.
What they did: Hunt wrote to the NFL commissioner in 1966, suggesting that the two leagues' champions play each other every year.
"If possible, I believe we should 'coin a phrase' for the Championship Game. I have kiddingly called it the 'Super Bowl,' which obviously can be improved upon," he wrote.
The first Super Bowl was played in 1967 in Los Angeles.
Yes, but: While Hunt is widely credited by the NFL and others with naming the Super Bowl, Yahoo Sports theorizes the name may have been coined by journalists.
Zoom out: The Hunt family, whose net worth is estimated to be almost $30 billion, are one of the richest families in America and still own the Chiefs.
They invest in sports, energy and real estate. Lamar Hunt's sons own FC Dallas.
