A crowdfunding campaign could make public a rare tape of the Packers' Super Bowl I victory

Fifty-three years ago this week, the Green Bay Packers beat the Kansas City Chiefs in the first Super Bowl. More than 70 million people watched the game on TV. 

Other than a few game highlights, only a handful have seen it since.

The reason? The networks that aired the game taped over the broadcasts (with soap operas, apparently). And when a home video showing nearly all of Super Bowl I turned up nearly 20 years ago, the NFL blocked attempts to get the game in wider circulation. 

A pair of documentary filmmakers are trying to change that. 

Jeremy Coon and Tim Skousen launched a Kickstarter campaign Wednesday, the 53rd anniversary of Super Bowl I, to raise $50,000 to complete work on "The Tape: The Lost Recording of Super Bowl I." 

The documentary will recount the first Super Bowl, the discovery of a home video of the game nearly 40 years later, and the efforts to get that video restored and into public view. 

If the campaign raises $1.5 million, Coon said, he and Skousen will buy the video themselves. 

The video is owned by Troy Haupt, a North Carolina man whose father had taped the game. He offered it to the NFL for $1 million, the value put on the tape by Sports Illustrated in 2011; the league responded by offering $30,000 and threatening to sue Haupt if he tried to release it to anyone else. 

The tape of the game — which is missing the halftime show and the start of the third quarter — was restored by the Paley Center for Media in New York. According to a story by The Wall Street Journal about the Kickstarter campaign, Haupt has agreed to sell the tape to Coon and Skousen for $750,000 if they can raise the money. 

If the Kickstarter campaign is a success, Coon said, he hopes to release the movie the week before next year's Super Bowl — when there won't be a game on TV to compete with it. 

Coon said they resorted to crowdfunding to finish the project because it would help get people to rally behind the movie — and to combat what he called the NFL's "intimidating" of investors and the Haupt family. 

So far, the filmmakers have interviewed several Super Bowl I participants, including Packers great Jerry Kramer and Chiefs star Fred Williamson, and veteran announcer Jack Whitaker. Whitaker, who died last summer at age 95, got a chance to see the game, and hear his call of it, for the first time during their interview. 

"He had talked for years about how his favorite work was on the first Super Bowl," Coon said. 

Among the surprises for Coon in making the movie has been how different the world of sports was in 1967. The first Super Bowl, called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game, was not the blockbuster we're used to today. Footage from the game reveals sections of empty seats at the Los Angeles Coliseum, where the game was played. 

"The game was played in Los Angeles, but it was blacked out (there on TV) because they didn't sell enough tickets," Coon said. 

Scenes for the movie also were shot at Lambeau Field, where Coon got to see a game (and checked that off his bucket list). But more interviews need to be completed. 

"We've kind of been doing this as a labor of love," said Coon, who also co-directed "Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made," about a group of teenagers who attempted a shot-for-shot remake of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." That documentary was shown at the Milwaukee Film Festival in 2015. 

Also on Coon's filmmaking plate: a movie about the making of "The Star Wars Holiday Special," a 1978 production that, like the Super Bowl I telecast, has developed a cult following despite, or because of, never having been released. 

Coon said he wasn't intending to specialize in objects of video obsession, but it does reflect his affection for nostalgia. 

"I just happened to be interested in those things, for better or worse," Coon said. 

Coon, who's based in Salt Lake City, is also interested in the Packers winning Sunday's NFC Championship game against the San Francisco 49ers. If the Packers win and Chiefs beat the Tennessee Titans in the AFC title game, it could be a rematch of Super Bowl I — and could give Coon's movie an additional boost. 

"I usually root for the Packers, but I'm really rooting for them this weekend," he said. 

For details on the Kickstarter campaign, go to seethetape.com. 

Contact Chris Foran at chris.foran@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @cforan12.