THE LOST COPY OF SUPERBOWL 3

Tales of Recovery examines how specific television programs once thought missing or lost have been recovered. Often, these recoveries were not well-publicized or took place so long ago that they themselves have been forgotten.
The third AFL-NFL Championship Game, better known as Super Bowl III, pitted the New York Jets (AFL) against the Baltimore Colts (NFL). The game was played on January 12th, 1969 in Miami and aired on NBC with Curt Gowdy, Al DeRogatis, and Kyle Rote calling the action. Spoiler alert: the Jets won 16-7.
It’s likely that NBC recorded some or all of the game on videotape. If so, it’s equally likely the network then recorded over those expensive videotapes. For more than 15 years, Super Bowl III was considered lost. It wasn’t until 1985 that a copy of the game was found by the Museum of Broadcasting (now known as The Paley Center for Media) thanks to a call from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). Here’s how Robert Batscha, then-president of the Museum of Broadcasting, described the recovery for The New York Times:
" We found Superbowl III, the famous 1969 game, when we got a call from Ascap saying they had a warehouse of material they wanted to get rid of, stuff that had been randomly recorded, and did we want to take a look."
So now we have the full game for our Jets fans to watch