You know it’s February 6. You know it’s Packers vs. Steelers but…exactly when is the Super Bowl? It’s hard to know sometimes with the TV networks starting their pre-game shows hours ahead of time and the game starting well after the normal Sunday NFL kickoffs and well before traditional prime time.
Super Bowl kickoff used to be in the early afternoon, just like any other Sunday game. But now, the pre-game shows bring in big money so the networks want to have several hours of build-up. They also want to make sure the game and post-game is over by the end of prime time, tpically 11 p.m. eastern time. So that means the answer to the question of “what time does the Super Bowl start” is…6:30 p.m. eastern time (5:30 Central or Green Bay time, 4:30 mountain time and 3:30 Pacific time).
That’s true every year, by the way. The NFL has pretty much settled on the time and won’t likely change it much in the near future.
2011 Super Bowl kickoff should be within a few minutes of 6:30, anyway. It’s sometimes off by a little, but it won’t be before then, that’s for sure.
And now you know. When someone asks “what time is the Super Bowl?”, you can not only tell them, but tell them why!
