Super Bowl Champions Won 31 of 42 College All-Star Games

Published on January 19th, 2025 7:39 pm EST
Written By: Dave Manuel


College Stars vs NFL Champions - The Cancelled classic annual game.  The history. In 1933, the sports editor of the Chicago Tribune, Arch Ward, came up with a novel idea:

What if there were an annual game between the Super Bowl champions and a college football all-star team?

In those days, college football was pretty much the only game in town, while the NFL was a young and largely unfollowed league.

In short - the NFL wanted the exposure and agreed to Arch Ward's idea, and the Chicago Charities College All-Star Game was started.

The idea was simple - a panel of sports writers would select a college football all-star team, and this team would go up against the Super Bowl champion in a preseason exhibition game.

The two sides agreed to the idea and the first game was set for August 31st, 1934.

Nearly 80,000 people watched the game at Soldier Field in Chicago as the two teams battled to a 0-0 tie.

The following year, the Chicago Bears would score the first win for the NFL, as they defeated the All-Stars by a score of 5-0.

The crowds continue to come out for the annual games. In 1938, the College All-Stars scored their first ever win in the exhibition, as they defeated the Washington Redskins by a score of 28-16.

In 1940, the NFL started to assert their dominance in the contest, as they would win four out of the next five games.

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The annual contest would continue until 1976.

That year, the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the College All-Stars by a score of 24-0.

The NFL would finish the annual contest with a record of 30-9-2, with one year (1974) being cancelled due to a NFL strike.

There were a couple of reasons why the Chicago Charities College All-Star Game was cancelled:

1) The NFL was simply becoming too popular and they no longer needed the exposure
2) Injuries

NFL teams were hesitant to commit to playing their star players in games in which they didn't have a financial benefit. The NFL was becoming a big business and the annual charity game no longer made financial sense to the league.

The 1976 game featured some absolutely terrible weather. After that, the NFL decided that they had had enough, and the game was permanently cancelled.

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The annual game did an excellent job of promoting the NFL, as a number of the games were played in front of over 100,000 people, many of whom were primarily there to watch the college football players.

Worries over injuries and a lack of financial benefit for the NFL ultimately led to the undoing of the annual contest.

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