Super Bowl 60 between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks kicks off at 6:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, Feb. 8, and your living room deserves a game plan as sharp as the one Mike Vrabel is drawing up.
Whether you’re hosting five friends or 50, the best watch parties don’t just happen. They’re built around the broadcast, the matchup, and a food spread that keeps everyone fed from pregame to the final whistle.
Your Super Bowl 60 Watch Party Timeline, From Setup to Kickoff
The biggest mistake hosts make is treating kickoff like the starting gun. NBC’s pregame coverage begins at noon ET with “Road to the Super Bowl,” an NFL Films documentary on the Patriots’ and Seahawks’ paths to Santa Clara. The official pregame show, hosted by Maria Taylor, kicks in at 1 p.m. ET. That means your setup window is the morning, not the afternoon.
Work backward from 6:30 p.m. ET. Food should be out and ready by 5 p.m. so guests can load plates before the pregame energy ramps up. Prop sheets and square grids need to be filled out before kickoff, so have those printed and visible by the time people walk in the door. If you’re running a squares pool, set a hard deadline of 6 p.m. for all entries. No exceptions.
For the viewing setup, prioritize sound over screen size. A 55-inch TV with a soundbar beats a 75-inch with tinny built-in speakers. The Super Bowl broadcast is engineered for big audio, from the crowd noise to Bad Bunny’s halftime performance to Mike Tirico’s call.
Let your guests hear it. If your main TV room can’t seat everyone comfortably, set up a secondary screen in the kitchen or an adjacent room. People will migrate toward the food anyway.
One detail most guides skip: the game will also stream on Peacock and on NFL+ via mobile devices, both of which require a subscription. If your Wi-Fi can handle it, throw the game on a laptop or tablet in whatever room people congregate. Nobody should have to miss a play because they went for a refill.
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Don’t forget the pregame performances either. Charlie Puth handles the national anthem alongside Deaf music artist Fred Beam, Brandi Carlile sings “America the Beautiful” with Deaf music performer Julian Ortiz, and Coco Jones performs “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Green Day is playing the opening ceremony. These moments are worth watching, and they make natural windows for the final round of food prep.
Food, Games, and Making the Matchup Part of the Party
The food table is where your party lives or dies. Lean into the matchup with a split spread: New England clam chowder (bread bowls if you’re ambitious), lobster rolls, and Sam Adams on one side. Seattle-inspired teriyaki sliders, smoked salmon dip, and a Pacific Northwest IPA on the other. Let guests pick a side. It sounds gimmicky, but it works. People talk about it, argue about it, and it creates energy before the game even starts.
Beyond the themed options, stick to the essentials that have earned their spot at every Super Bowl party for a reason: wings (bone-in, tossed in Buffalo sauce after frying), a queso or spinach artichoke dip that stays warm in a slow cooker, and pizza ordered from a local spot rather than a chain.
Prep everything you can the night before. Dips get mixed and refrigerated. Wings get seasoned. Bread bowls get hollowed out. The less you’re doing in the kitchen on Sunday, the more you’re watching with your guests.
For games, squares remain the gold standard because they require zero football knowledge and keep casual fans invested in every scoring play. Print a 10×10 grid, charge a dollar per square, and pay out at the end of each quarter.
A prop bet sheet is the perfect complement. Include questions that everyone can answer: over/under on the national anthem length, Gatorade color on the winning coach, coin toss result, first team to score, and Super Bowl MVP. Print enough copies for every guest and set a small buy-in to keep things interesting.
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The real conversation starter for this Super Bowl is the history. New England and Seattle last met for the title in Super Bowl 49, when Malcolm Butler’s goal-line interception sealed a 28-24 Patriots win.
If you’ve got a mixed crowd of fans, that alone will fuel an hour of debate. Lean into it. Print out a trivia sheet about the Super Bowl 49 game. Ask guests to predict whether this year’s ending will be as dramatic. Give the winner a prize.
The halftime show will likely start somewhere between 8 and 8:30 p.m. ET, which is your window to refresh the food table, check the squares grid, and make sure everyone has a drink.
Bad Bunny’s set will keep the room engaged even if your guests aren’t reggaeton diehards. After halftime, the real tension kicks in. Keep the snacks simple for the second half (chips, pretzels, something easy to grab) and let the game take over.
One last thing: don’t be the host who’s so stressed out you can’t enjoy it. Delegate. Ask one friend to handle drinks, another to run the squares pool, and another to manage the music during commercial breaks. The best Super Bowl parties feel effortless, and that only happens when you plan far enough ahead that Sunday itself is for watching football.