Last updated: 6 August 2026. Kickoff times and broadcasters for Super Bowl LXI are confirmed where stated and flagged where they aren’t. I refresh this page in September and again in January.
Super Bowl LXI is on Sunday 14 February 2027 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, just outside Los Angeles, live on ABC and ESPN in the United States and on 5 in the UK and Ireland. The exact kickoff time isn’t confirmed yet, but recent Super Bowls have started at 6:30pm Eastern: that’s 11:30pm in the UK and half past midnight in Spain and Germany.
When Super Bowl LXI is, and where it’s being played
The 61st Super Bowl is on Sunday 14 February 2027, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. It’s the ninth Super Bowl held in the Los Angeles area and the second at SoFi, which hosted Super Bowl LVI in 2022.
Two things about it are unusual. It falls on Valentine’s Day, which is a first. And it’s the first Super Bowl ever shown by ESPN, and the first on ABC since 2006, because the American rights rotate between four networks on a four-year cycle.
The kickoff time hasn’t been announced. SoFi Stadium’s own listing still shows it as to be confirmed. Every time in this guide assumes the 6:30pm Eastern slot the last few Super Bowls have used, and I’ll replace the estimates with the confirmed time the moment the NFL publishes it.
What time the Super Bowl starts where you are
Kickoff (the start of play, when one team boots the ball down the field to the other) happens in the early evening on the American east coast. Because the game is always in February, nobody anywhere is on summer time, so these conversions hold every year.
| Where you are | Kickoff | Day |
|---|---|---|
| US Eastern: New York, Miami, Atlanta | 6:30pm | Sunday |
| US Central: Chicago, Dallas, Houston | 5:30pm | Sunday |
| US Mountain: Denver, Salt Lake City | 4:30pm | Sunday |
| US Pacific: Los Angeles, Seattle | 3:30pm | Sunday |
| UK and Ireland | 11:30pm | Sunday |
| Spain, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands | 12:30am | Monday |
| Greece, Finland | 1:30am | Monday |
Times shown assume a 6:30pm ET kickoff, the slot used for Super Bowl LX. Confirm against the NFL’s announcement closer to the date.
Notice what that means on the continent. Kickoff in Madrid or Berlin is half past midnight on a Monday, and the game runs past four in the morning. The UK gets off comparatively lightly. Spain and Germany do not, and no guide I’ve read says so plainly.
You wouldn’t be doing it alone, though. In Germany, Super Bowl LX took 33.8% of the total television audience and 58.8% of viewers aged 14 to 49. Among men aged 14 to 29, the average share was 85%. That is at half past midnight on a work night, which tells you the overnight thing is a settled European habit rather than something only the obsessed do.
Why “when it starts” has two different answers
This is the bit that catches people out, and it caught me out. I once set an alarm for the start time I’d found online thinking it was when the game started and found a studio full of people talking. Not too big of a deal, but one to watch if you are further afield than Germany! The number I’d copied was when the coverage started, not when they played. Those are different times, and how different depends entirely on which country you’re watching from.
Here’s what actually happened for Super Bowl LX in February 2026:
| Country | Broadcaster | Coverage started | Kickoff | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | NBC | 1:00pm ET | 6:30pm ET | 5 hours 30 |
| Spain | DAZN, via Movistar Plus+ | 11:00pm CET | 12:30am CET | 1 hour 30 |
| Germany | RTL | 11:15pm CET | 12:30am CET | 1 hour 15 |
| UK | 5 | 10:30pm GMT | 11:30pm GMT | 1 hour |
Sources: published broadcast schedules for Super Bowl LX, February 2026. NBC Sports, Movistar Plus+, RTL, and 5.
The American pre-game show is longer than the game. That isn’t a quirk of one broadcaster: the build-up is a genuine part of the event in the US, and the networks fill the afternoon with it. European broadcasters compress it into an hour or so, because at that point on a Sunday night nobody is watching five hours of studio analysis.
So when you see a start time, check which one it is. If you only want the football, the kickoff column is the one you need.
When the halftime show actually happens
A lot of people in Europe stay up for the halftime show rather than the game, and that’s completely fine. It’s a separate event in all but name, and it’s often the most-watched twenty minutes of the night.
Halftime falls after the second of the game’s four quarters. In practice, with all the stoppages and adverts, that lands roughly two hours after kickoff. For a 6:30pm Eastern start, that’s somewhere around half past one in the morning in the UK and half past two in Spain and Germany.
I’m giving you a rough window rather than a time because the NFL doesn’t publish one, and it moves with how the game itself goes. If the halftime act is your reason for watching, plan for a two-hour wait from kickoff and check the score before you commit.
Which channel shows the Super Bowl in your country
The rights change more often than you’d expect, and a lot of guides online are a year or two out of date. Here’s where it stands for Super Bowl LXI.
United States
ABC and ESPN, simulcast, with Joe Buck calling the game and Troy Aikman alongside him. Streaming on the ESPN app, Disney+, Hulu and NFL+. A Spanish commentary is available on ESPN Deportes. National radio is on Westwood One. ESPN confirmed the full arrangement in May 2026.
United Kingdom and Ireland
5, free to air. This one is worth stating clearly because it changed recently and plenty of guides haven’t caught up. ITV showed the Super Bowl through 2025. From Super Bowl LX in February 2026, it moved to 5 under a multi-year deal that also brought two live NFL games a week back to British free-to-air television for the first time in twenty years. Super Bowl LX was presented by Dermot O’Leary, Sam Quek and Osi Umenyiora.
Sky Sports also carries it, for subscribers, with a longer and more football- focused build-up, under its own three-year renewal. If you’re already a Sky customer, that’s the deeper coverage. If you’re not, you don’t need to pay: the whole game is free on 5.
For radio, the game has recently been on BBC Radio 5 Live and talkSPORT. Worth knowing if you’d rather listen in bed than watch until three.
Spain
DAZN holds the NFL rights in Spain and carries the Super Bowl with Spanish commentary, available directly or through Movistar Plus+, where DAZN 1 sits on channel 70.
In February 2026 there was a twist: Mediaset also put the game out free on terrestrial television, the first time it had been that widely available in Spain. Whether that repeats for LXI hasn’t been announced.
Germany and Austria
Not confirmed yet. RTL showed Super Bowl LX free to air, opening at 23:15 with kickoff at 00:30, and streamed it on RTL+. The German-language picture is shifting, though: a dedicated 24-hour Sky Sport NFL channel launches in the German-speaking market for the 2026/27 season. I’ll update this section when the LXI broadcaster is announced rather than guess at it now.
Everywhere else
NFL Game Pass, operated by DAZN, carries every game including the Super Bowl in most countries outside the United States. It’s the fallback if your country has no free option, and it gives you the original American broadcast, adverts and all, which some people specifically want.
Alternative broadcasts and watch-alongs
You don’t have to watch the standard commentary, and if you’re new to the sport you might not want to.
The ManningCast is the alternative broadcast to know about. Peyton and Eli Manning talk over the game on ESPN2 in a much looser register, explaining what’s happening as it happens and constantly interrupting each other. For a beginner it’s the single friendliest way into a Super Bowl, because the entire format is two people breaking down a game for an audience rather than performing for one. ESPN has confirmed it’s part of the LXI coverage.
Creator watch-alongs on YouTube and Twitch are the other route, and the British and Irish NFL scene has a decent few. The appeal is the same as the ManningCast: a smaller, more conversational commentary where questions get answered rather than assumed.
The American feed versus your local one. Local broadcasts usually replace the American adverts with their own. If you specifically want the famous Super Bowl commercials, which are a genuine part of the spectacle in the US, you want the original feed, which is what NFL Game Pass gives you.
Where to watch it with other people
This is a better night out than it sounds, especially in Europe, where staying up until four alone is a different proposition from doing it in a room full of people.
The UK
British American Football, the sport’s national governing body here, publishes a watch-party finder each year listing official and club-run screenings across the country. That’s the most reliable place to start, and it goes well beyond London: for Super Bowl LX the list included venues in Manchester, Nottingham, Norwich, Northampton, Milton Keynes and Morecambe, several of them run by local American football clubs.
For LX specifically, the official NFL watch party in London was at Big Penny Social in Walthamstow. Beyond that, Boxpark screened it at all four of its London sites, the Clapham Grand ran a ticketed screening on a 25-foot screen, and Blues Kitchen and Hard Rock Cafe did it across their London venues. Those are the reliable annual fixtures rather than one-offs, so they’re a reasonable bet again.
Two practical notes. Most ticketed screenings have a last-entry time well before kickoff, often around 10pm, so a ticket doesn’t mean you can turn up at 11:15. And they’re all over-18s, since the game finishes in the small hours in a licensed venue.
Spain and mainland Europe
Madrid has become the centre of this. The official NFL Super Bowl watch party for 2026 was held at the Teatro Eslava in central Madrid, with live music before kickoff and the game shown through to the finish. That followed the first NFL regular-season game ever played in Spain, at the Santiago Bernabéu in November 2025, which drew 78,610 people.
Beyond the official event, American-style bars and restaurant chains across Madrid and Barcelona screen it, most requiring a booking. The NFL has committed to Madrid long-term, with the Atlanta Falcons playing at the Bernabéu again in the 2026 season, so the surrounding events are likely to grow rather than shrink.
Germany has one of the largest NFL followings in Europe and the game is on free-to-air television there, so public screenings are common, but I don’t yet have verified named venues for Berlin or Munich. I’d rather leave a gap than list places I haven’t checked. This section gets filled in January.
The United States
If you’re in the US, or travelling there for it, the thing to know is that the Super Bowl is a week, not a day.
Super Bowl Experience is the NFL’s official fan festival, held in the host city from the Tuesday to the Saturday of Super Bowl week. For LX it took over the Moscone Center in San Francisco from 3 to 7 February 2026, with photo opportunities with the Vince Lombardi Trophy, a display of every Super Bowl ring, a 40-yard dash against virtual players, and player appearances. City officials expected up to 100,000 visitors. It’s ticketed, family-friendly, and it’s the closest most people get to the event itself.
Alongside it, 2026 brought a change worth knowing: the Pro Bowl Games, the league’s all-star flag football event, moved into Super Bowl week for the first time rather than standing alone, played at the same venue on the Tuesday.
Host committees also run free fan zones, which for LX meant Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco. Expect the equivalent in Los Angeles for LXI, announced late in the year.
What the night actually looks like
If you’ve never sat through one, here’s the shape of it, so nothing catches you out.
The game is four quarters of fifteen minutes each. That’s an hour of clock. A Super Bowl typically runs three and a half to four hours, because the clock stops constantly, there are far more advert breaks than a normal game, and halftime is extended to fit the show. Coverage in the UK ran to about 3am for Super Bowl LX.
Before kickoff there’s a set sequence: performances, the American national anthem, then the coin toss. Halftime arrives after the second quarter and runs to something like twenty or thirty minutes. Then two more quarters, then the trophy presentation, which is worth staying up for if your team is in it and worth going to bed for if it isn’t.
If you want to understand what you’re actually watching rather than just when, start with how the game works and how the two teams got there. If you want the history, the full list of every Super Bowl winner is here too.
Common questions
What time does the Super Bowl start in the UK? Super Bowl LXI’s kickoff time hasn’t been confirmed. Recent Super Bowls have kicked off at 6:30pm Eastern, which is 11:30pm in the UK. Television coverage usually starts about an hour earlier, so around 10:30pm. The game runs until roughly 3am.
What time does the Super Bowl start in Spain and Germany? Half past midnight, going into the Monday morning, if the game keeps its recent 6:30pm Eastern kickoff slot. Coverage in both countries usually starts between 11:00pm and 11:15pm, and the game finishes at around four in the morning.
Which channel shows the Super Bowl in the UK? 5, free to air, for Super Bowl LXI. It moved from ITV to 5 in February 2026 under a multi-year deal. Sky Sports also carries it for subscribers, with longer build-up, and it has recently been on BBC Radio 5 Live and talkSPORT.
Is the Super Bowl free to watch? In the UK and Ireland, yes, on 5. In Germany it was free on RTL in 2026, though the LXI broadcaster hasn’t been confirmed. In Spain it’s on DAZN, and in 2026 it was also shown free on terrestrial television. In the US it’s on ABC, which is free to air, and on ESPN.
How long does the Super Bowl last? Usually three and a half to four hours from kickoff, despite only sixty minutes of game clock. The clock stops frequently, there are more advert breaks than a normal game, and halftime is extended for the show. Add an hour of pre-game coverage before that if you’re watching from the start.
Do I need a VPN to watch the Super Bowl? No. It’s free to air in the UK and Ireland and widely available elsewhere, and NFL Game Pass covers most countries with no official broadcaster. Using a VPN to reach another country’s stream generally breaches that platform’s terms, so it isn’t something I’d recommend.