The 1943 NFL Championship Game was the 11th annual title game of the National Football League (NFL). The game was held at Wrigley Field in Chicago on December 26, 1943, and drew attendance of 34,320.[1]
The contest featured the Western Division champion Chicago Bears (who compiled an 8–1–1 regular season record) against the Eastern Division champion Washington Redskins (6–3–1). The previous week the Redskins had defeated the New York Giants by a score of 28–0 to determine the champs of the east after the teams ended the regular season with identical records. This playoff game pushed the championship back to it's latest ever date, and the late-December Chicago weather caused the game to be dubbed the "Ice Bowl".[2]
The crowd was smaller than the previous year's and well off the championship game record of 48,120 set in 1938,[2] but the gross gate receipts of $120,500.50 set a record.[3] In addition to the gate, radio broadcast rights to the game were sold for $5,000.[3] This take meant that each player on the winning club took home $1,135.81 while each member of the losing team got $754.60.[3]
The Bears were led by quarterback Sid Luckman while Sammy Baugh was the quarterback for the Redskins.
The Chicago win marked the franchise's third championship in four seasons, their fourth since the institution of the championship game in 1933 and their sixth since the NFL was formed in 1921.[4]
1 – From 1966 to 1969, the first four Super Bowls were "World Championship" games played between two independent professional football leagues, AFL and NFL, and when the league merged in 1970 the Super Bowl became the NFL Championship Game. 2 – Dates in the list denote the season, not the calendar year in which the championship game was played. For instance, Super Bowl XLI was played in 2007, but was the championship for the 2006 season.
