Super Bowl 2024: kickoff time, half-time show and Taylor Swift – what to know

Travis Kelce (left), Taylor Swift (center) and Brock Purdy (right) will all play prominent roles at the Super Bowl this weekend Composite: EPA, PA

The Super Bowl will take place on Sunday, and if you’re anything like millions of people around the world then you’re probably wondering: when can I watch it, and how?

But is that all you really need to know? What about those absurd rightwing conspiracy theories going around social media, and will Taylor Swift be able to make it all the way from Tokyo? How much would it cost you to place a small ad during the game? Read on for all the answers …

Who’s playing in the Super Bowl?

This year’s Super Bowl – or Super Bowl LVIII (that’s Super Bowl 58 if you’re not a Roman legionary) – will be between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers.

The Chiefs are the closest thing to a dynasty the NFL has at the moment: thanks, in no small part, to their brilliant quarterback Patrick Mahomes they have reached the Super Bowl in four of the past five seasons.

If they win on Sunday, they’ll have claimed the title on three of those occasions. Their opponents, the San Francisco 49ers, were just as dominant in the 1980s: they captured the Super Bowl four times, but haven’t won since the 1994 season.

Where will it be played?

Allegiant Stadium, home of the Las Vegas Raiders, who didn’t make the playoffs and last won the Super Bowl in the 1983 season when they were based in Los Angeles. That’s par for the course though: only two teams, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Los Angeles Rams, have won the Super Bowl in their own stadium.

Are people happy with Vegas as the venue?

For years, the NFL – and other leagues – shunned Vegas due to its association with gambling. But that has changed as sports betting has become legal – and accepted – across large parts of the US. So, will Sin City be a fun venue for a game that is an excuse for a days-long party? Yep! Has the NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, already had to warn players and coaches not to bet on the game? Sure has! Is it a fitting host city given that the NFL – and many of its broadcasting partners – recently sold their souls to big-time gambling and a record number of Americans will bet on this year’s game? Definitely!

When will the 49ers and Chiefs kick off?

Kickoff is at 3.30pm local time, which is 6.30pm on the US east coast, 11.30pm in the UK and 10.30am on Monday in Sydney.

And where can I watch or stream it?

Well, you can watch it live in the stadium although it’s sold out and the cheapest tickets start at around $5,500 on resale sites.

CBS are the primary broadcasters in the US this year, and will also show the game on kids’ channel Nickelodeon – featuring lots of slime and TikTok dances (actually a lot better than it sounds) – and Spanish-language network Univision.

In the UK, the game will be on ITV1 and Sky Sports and in Australia you can watch it on the Seven Network.

What’s this about the game being a deep state plan to deprive Donald Trump of the presidency?

Well, as you may have heard if you live within 98bn miles of Earth, Taylor Swift is going out with one of the Chiefs’ star players, Travis Kelce.

In the liberal media, this has given rise to a thousand think-pieces on whether this will attract young women to football (millions of them liked it already!) and what the Chiefs’ inverted Cover 2 defense says about the state of modern masculinity (a lot!). The US right though? Hoo boy.

Let’s hand over to Jack Lombardi, a rightwing influencer who unsuccessfully ran to be a Republican congressional candidate in 2022 and isn’t happy Swift has previously endorsed Democrats or that Kelce once appeared in an advert for the Covid jab.

“I have never been more convinced that the Super Bowl is rigged,” wrote Lombardi on X after the Chiefs beat the Ravens to reach the big game. “With all the unneeded and unwanted Taylor coverage at the games. KC’s journey to the Super Bowl – totally scripted. Next … Travis and Taylor together at the Super Bowl, appearing happy, and in love. Then KC wins. And then later announcing their support for Biden.”

So there you go: put your money on the Chiefs to win and Biden to romp home in the presidential election. Only one of those results would go uncontested though.

I’d heard Taylor Swift may not even be at Sunday’s game though?

When she’s not moonlighting as a deep state psy-op, Swift is the biggest pop star in the world and will be playing a concert in Tokyo on Saturday, the day before the Super Bowl. Fear not though, she can make the game if she flies to Vegas in her private jet (so she’s not that much of a bleeding-heart liberal then). Having said all that, Kelce seemed to suggest Swift’s presence in Vegas is still in doubt. “The Super Bowl, we’ll worry about if she can make it,” he said this week when asked if she intends to give him a pep talk before the game.

Who are the players to watch?

Mahomes, perhaps the most talented player to ever grace the NFL, is always worth watching thanks to his brilliant arm, football smarts and the fact that he sounds like Kermit the Frog when barking orders. But this year has been a relative down one for Mahomes due to the fact that the Chiefs chose to surround him on offense with the ever-reliable Kelce and a few guys they found wandering around near the stadium before the game.

Their defense, on the other hand, is brilliant, features stars such as L’Jarius Sneed and Chris Jones, and smothered the Ravens’ high-powered offense in the AFC Championship Game last month. The San Francisco 49ers’ quarterback is Brock Purdy, who few would have predicted would ever start in the NFL, let alone make the Super Bowl. Their head coach Kyle Shanahan has genius-level intellect, and has brilliant players such as Deebo Samuel, Nick Bosa, Christian McCaffrey and Fred Warner to call on. Having said that, they were very lucky to get past the Detroit Lions in their previous game.

I want to promote my new line of Kelce-Swift leisurewear but don’t have Instagram. Can I pay for an ad on CBS instead?

You sure can, but an advert will set you back around $7m for a 30-second spot. You’ll get plenty of eyeballs though: last year’s game averaged just over 115m viewers across all platforms in the US alone.

That should be good for sales. Who’s going the half-time show?

That would be R&B legend Usher, who must be a little annoyed that he is now the second-most anticipated pop act at this year’s game. Country music star Reba McEntire will sing the national anthem.

How much do the winners get?

Winning players will get $164,000 each with the losers getting around half of that. Not bad for a few hours’ (very painful) work but probably not much for Mahomes and Bosa, who made $59.4m and $51m this season respectively (Purdy has to get by on a mere $870,000, several million dollars below the median income in some parts of San Francisco).

And who will win?

It’s a pretty even match-up: the 49ers have the most talent across their roster, while the Chiefs have the best player (in the NFL) in Mahomes. You can make a strong case for each team, but the Chiefs’ defense combined with Mahomes’s ability to do otherworldly things when needed gives them a slight edge.