At 74, photographer John Biever is preparing to cover his 60th and final Super Bowl on Sunday. After starting at the age of 14 alongside his father, he is the only man to have immortalized the entire editions of the high mass of American football.

Published on: 06/02/2026 - 08:13

While Super Bowl LX is marked by renewal and youth with the clash between Sam Darnold's Seattle Seahawks and Drake Maye's New England Patriots, a legend of the event is preparing to bow out: Sam Biever, who has experienced the entirety of the 60 Super Bowls in history within the platoon of photographers.

In his San Diego home, however, only one football image sits on the walls: a black and white photo from 1967 during a game so cold (-25°C) that it was nicknamed the "Ice Bowl". We see Bart Starr, then quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, crashing into the end zone to snatch victory against Dallas.

“If this touchdown had not been scored, my series would have stopped at one,” laughs John Biever today to AP. Because this victory sent Green Bay to the second Super Bowl in history.

John, then a teenager, had accompanied his father Vernon, the Packers' official photographer, the previous year. Sixty years later, the Wisconsin teenager became the last reporter to witness the entire Super Bowl story.

A Sports Illustrated contributor

Biever's longevity as a Super Bowl eye has as much to do with his knack for capturing key Finals moments as it does with nudges of fate. Like in 1969, when the Packers did not qualify for the first time in the fledgling history of the Super Bowl.

He had already resigned himself to staying in Wisconsin for publishing when his father obtained accreditation for him at the last minute via Steve Sabol, director of NFL Films. After several years working for NFL affiliates, he spent most of his career working for the prestigious Sports Illustrated magazine. He eventually returned to the NFL fold for the remainder of his career.

“Having professional equipment in your basement. Being able to try it and see how you do was not within everyone's reach,” he explains. “Having had this access, that doesn’t happen to anyone… I was very lucky.”

He and his father covered the first 35 Super Bowls together, including the 31st and 32nd, when the Packers returned to the Finals for the first time since the first two. Vernon Biever was even inducted into the team's Hall of Fame in 2002.

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The Last of the Mohicans

John Biever's memories are a journey through the history of the event, which over the years has become the ultimate incarnation of American entertainment. But he remembers a time, in 1966 and 1967, when the event was not even called Super Bowl yet, but the simple AFL-NFL final, between the two most popular American football leagues of the time.

“The stands weren’t even full,” he remembers. "In my photos of Max McGee's first touchdown in history, you see rows of empty seats in the background. Today, that's unthinkable."

The photographer also remembers a more informal era, when Hollywood stars strolled on the sidelines among journalists, without the drastic security that now surrounds the event.

In 2016, during Super Bowl L, there were eight photographers and editors who covered the first 50 editions. Today, he is the last of this very closed circle but is now preparing to set the lens.

“Sixty is a good round number to stop at,” he confides.

With AP

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