The New York Giants and the Baltimore Ravens are the two only defending Super Bowl champions to have lost. ĭefending Super Bowl champions are 11–2 in the Kickoff Game. With the advent of Monday Night Football in 1970 it became common for the Super Bowl champion to appear in a "showcase" game the first weekend of the season.
NFL KICKOFF WEEK 1 PRO
Billed as the "The World Series of Pro Football" the game matched the 4-time champion Browns against the 2-time champion Eagles and with an attendance of 71,000 was one of the largest pro football crowds to that date. From 1934 to 1976, the first game of the pre-season was the Chicago All-Star Game, an exhibition match featuring the previous season's NFL champions against an all-rookie team of college all-stars held annually in Soldier Field in Chicago.Īfter the merger of the NFL with the All-America Football Conference in 1949, the opening game of the 1950 NFL season was a Saturday night showcase game between the NFL champion Philadelphia Eagles and the AAFC champion Cleveland Browns. The concept of the NFL champion playing in an opening game was not altogether new, however. In 2006, NBC acquired the television rights to the Kickoff Game as part of their Sunday Night Football package. Because of the success of the first game, the rights to televise both the Kickoff Game and the pregame concert were transferred immediately after the season to ABC as part of their Monday Night Football package. In order to do so, ESPN eliminated its traditional late-October Thursday night game (held the weekend of Games 1 and 2 of the World Series), and replaced it with the opening night kickoff game. It was considered a success, increasing NFL sponsorships by $1.9 billion over the next 14 months. It was conceived as an effort to boost economic recovery in the New York and Washington areas in the wake of 9/11.
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The Kickoff Game was introduced in the 2002 season, under the leadership of then-NFL marketing executive John Collins and then-NFL Senior Vice President of Special Events Jim Steeg.