Number of conference championship game appearances of NFL teams 2022

The San Francisco 49ers have played in the most conference championship games since the merger of the American Football League (AFL) and the National Football League (NFL) in 1970. The 49ers have progressed to win the Super Bowl on five occasions, placing them second in the ranking for the most Super Bowl wins of all NFL teams.

The NFL’s conference call

The merger between the AFL and NFL before the 1970 season saw the formation of two new conferences: the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). Both the Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots compete in the AFC – the Patriots reached the AFC championship game in every season from 2011 to 2019. The San Francisco 49ers are the highest-ranked team from the NFC, having also played in 17 championship games – the last of which came in the 2021/22 season.

The birth of the Super Bowl

The AFL was a professional league that competed alongside the NFL for ten seasons between 1960 and 1969. The new league grew a dedicated following of fans, and as competition on the field intensified, the two rival leagues agreed to introduce an AFL-NFL championship game at the end of the 1966 season – this game would later be named the Super Bowl in 1968. Teams from the NFL won the first two editions of the fixture; however, teams from the AFL won the following two, highlighting the quality of the league and ultimately helping to unite the rival leagues ahead of the 1970 season.