Is there a specific seat on the couch you want to secure before kickoff at a Super Bowl party?
The battle for prime real estate in front of the television during the grandest sporting event of the year can be just as chaotic as a fumble scrum.
But if you take your seat too early, you miss out on the wings and pigs in a blanket. Take it too late and your uncle has stolen your spot.
To prepare your game day seating strategy, you're going to have to know exactly what time the Super Bowl starts. But finding that information isn't always as easy as it should be.
We've got the news you need to know to start your day. Sign up for the First & 4Most morning newsletter — delivered to your inbox daily. >Sign up here.
Google Trends confirms that "What time does the Super Bowl start" is one of the most Googled questions for one weekend a year. But it often yields a range of answers.
6 p.m. ET. 6:30. 6:40. 6:45...
Dennis Deninger, who spent 25 years as an ESPN production executive and now teaches a Super Bowl course at Syracuse University, said that's because the NFL and the networks that air its games want all eyes on the broadcast in the half-hour leading up to kickoff.
NFL
"It's the biggest showcase for the NFL to get across all of the things it stands for," Deninger said. "They're hoping that people will tune in as early as possible in that 6-6:30 hour Eastern Time and catch most of the messaging that they want to deliver."
"Messaging" meaning those highly-priced commercials and sponsorships during the most valuable air time of the year.
"There's a lot of dollars in that," Eric Weinberger, a former NFL Network executive producer, said of that half hour before kickoff.
That window is also jam packed with pregame festivities like team introductions, the national anthem and the coin toss -- all of which are meticulously scheduled and planned to make sure the opening kick goes off as scheduled.
"They need the anthem person to be out there. They need the fireworks to go off. They need the coin toss to happen," Weinberger said. "It is rehearsed ad nauseam and they hit it every time."
We reached out to CBS, the network broadcasting this year's Super Bowl, for the exact kickoff time, and were provided with a press release saying pregame coverage will begin at 11:30 a.m. ET, entertainment will begin at 6 p.m. ET and the game will begin at 6:30 p.m. ET. But it's more like 6:30-ish.
So, if you're not seated at exactly 6:30 ET, you should have a few more minutes to grab some wings and pigs in a blanket before your uncle steals your spot. "I suspect it's going to kickoff around 6:34," Deninger said. "That's my educated guess."
