Super Bowl XLIX is dealing with “Deflategate.”

The first Super Bowl should have had “Inflategate,” which might have created more interest in the game.

“Inflate,” as in pregame promotion and coverage.

Footballs in Super Bowl I weren’t an issue because the NFL champion Packers used Wilson balls on offense and the AFL champion Chiefs utilized Spalding balls.

Wilson beat Spalding 35-10 on Jan. 15, 1967, at the Los Angeles Coliseum. The game had minimum promotion compared with today’s well-oiled machines oper- ated by the NFL and the media.

Veteran football fans may recall that two networks — CBS and NBC — televised the first Super Bowl.

As a TV-entertainment writer at the Rocky Mountain News, I had a firsthand look at how all parties involved dropped the promotional ball.

In a telephone interview a week before the game, Curt Gowdy, one of the NBC broadcasters, bemoaned the fact that pregame “tub thumping” (his phrase) was at a minimum.

“This game could be the start of something big for pro football. But few realize it,” Gowdy told me.

The lack of pregame coverage in all venues obviously hurt attendance at the Coliseum, which seated 94,000.

Only 61,000 showed up. They paid $12 per ticket — an “exorbitant price,” according to many in the Los Angeles media.

There was little planning ahead by the two leagues or television, after CBS (NFL) and NBC (AFL) agreed to carry the game.

The first official announcement about the game was made Dec. 13, more than a month before the opening kickoff.

The result: The game was not televised in the Los Angeles area.

The network broadcasters worked side by side in an elongated booth.

CBS featured Ray Scott, Jack Whitaker and Frank Gifford. NBC went with Gowdy and Paul Christman.

Pat Summerall (CBS) and George Ratterman (NBC) worked the sidelines.

Summerall, a few days after the telecast, noted that the broadcasters acted in “civil — even friendly — fashion.”

That wasn’t the case with the production crews, which built a huge chain-link fence between the two trucks in the Coliseum parking lot.

CBS, which supplied the cameras, set up most of the angles — much to the distress of the NBC crew.

If any rock stars were in the stadium, they were watching from the stands.

The halftime entertainment featured two college marching bands and trumpeter Al Hirt. The presentation of the championship trophy in the Packers’ locker room after the game had the look and feel of a high school presentation. Summerall and Ratterman worked from a single microphone.

The reason you haven’t seen videotape of the entire game?

Both networks, in economic moves, taped over the game to use the tape in future telecasts.

Some taped highlights have been saved in various form — the most famous showing Packers receiver Max McGee catching a Bart Starr-thrown touchdown pass, the first points of the game.

A damaged, 2-inch tape recording, found in 2011 inside an attic in Pennsylvania, includes everything except the halftime show and most of the third quarter. It was shipped to the Paley Television Museum in New York, restored and displayed.

NFL Films occasionally will show key filmed highlights, but a complete tape of the historic game doesn’t exist.

Compare that with today’s television environment. Super Bowl XLIX will be on television and the Internet for the next 12 months.

Inflategate? No one questions NBC providing ongoing promotion on seven network outlets. CBS, Fox, ABC, ESPN and the NFL Network also aren’t ignoring the New England-Seattle battle Sunday.

Longtime journalist Dusty Saunders writes about sports media each Monday in The Denver Post. Contact him at tvtime@comcast.net.

Here is a look at the Super Bowl on television, then and now.

• TV viewership:

1967 — 26.7 million on CBS, 24.4 million on NBC. Total: 51.1 million.

2014 — Broncos vs. Seahawks on Fox drew 111.5 million viewers.

• Cost of a 30-second, in-game advertising spot:

1967 — CBS and NBC both averaged about $42,000.

2015 — $4.5 million average on NBC.