Super Bowl XXIV coaches; rookie head coach George Seifert took over after Bill Walsh retired following the previous season's Super Bowl. The 49ers finished the 1989 regular season with a league best 14–2 record. The Broncos, who posted an 11–5 regular season record, entered the Super Bowl looking to avoid tying the Minnesota Vikings with four Super Bowl losses as well as the Vikings record of losing three Super Bowls in four years. This game remains the most lopsided game in Super Bowl history. San Francisco's 55 points were the most ever scored by one team, and their 45-point margin of victory was
Super Bowl XVI to date between two teams who had losing records the previous season, although Super Bowl XXXIV matched a team that had a losing record in 1998 (St. Louis Rams) against a team that finished a mediocre 8–8 that year (Tennessee Titans). This is the only Super Bowl to have ever been played at the Pontiac Silverdome. This was also only the second of 16 Super Bowls to not take place in one of the three so-called "Big Super Bowl Cities" (the other was Houston in January 1974). Fourteen of the previous 16 Super Bowls took place in either Miami, Florida,