Here’s When Super Bowl LII Will Most Likely End On Sunday

The moment diehard fans and casual viewers alike have been waiting for since Feb. 5, 2017 is here: Super Bowl LII is upon us. As the match between the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots rolls along, you may find yourself wondering when the 2018 Super Bowl will end. It's a question that can only truly be answered once the game is over, but a guesstimate will have to do for now. And when you're planning your Super Bowl Sunday, that guesstimate can really help out.

Maybe you’re trying to figure out when you're going to start dishing up the chocolate cake you wanted to serve before the two minute warning at your Super Bowl party. (And yes, you did write "Are You Ready For Some Fondant? It's A Mud Cake Night Party" in icing on the cake.) Or maybe you’d like to time your exit from the bar so you don’t have to deal with any post-game surge prices when you request a Lyft. Or maybe you're eager to sob your way through that night's episode of This Is Us. Or maybe you're just curious, is that a problem? (No, not a problem.) Whatever the case may be, here’s the thing about the Super Bowl: Like any other professional sporting event, it doesn’t have a cut and dried end time.

Yeah, each quarter lasts 15 minutes, and technically speaking, the total regular game time is only an hour long. However, there are a lot of other ingredients in this Bowl. There are timeouts, there could be overtime, there’s the halftime show, and, of course, don’t forget about the heaps and heaps of brand new commercials.

While the end time is to be determined, here’s one thing that’s set in stone: The kickoff for Super Bowl LII is slated for 6:30 p.m. ET/3:30 p.m. PT, and Pink is scheduled to sing the National Anthem before the game commences. So go ahead and jot that time down in your day planner, set an iPhone reminder — whatever floats your boat. And yes, this particular boat is actually a hollowed out baked potato that’s topped with cheese, sour cream, and bacon pieces.

When attempting to predict the end time for the upcoming Super Bowl, there’s no better clue than the Ghosts of Super Bowls Past, er, the Games of Super Bowls Past. According to Chat Sports, the average Super Bowl takes somewhere around four hours. So, Super Bowl LII will probably end around 10:30 p.m. ET/7:30 p.m. PT.

Ready to get a little more specific with how long this yearly football extravaganza usually goes? In 2017, The Verge looked at of the Super Bowls from the last decade and figured out the average game length. According to the site’s calculations, recent Super Bowls have lasted, on average, three hours and 44 minutes. While most of the games clock in under four hours, 2013’s Bowl lasted 4 hours and 15 minutes.

Now, as you might recall, that was the Super Bowl that, after it gifted the planet with Beyoncé’s life-changing halftime show performance, came to a grinding halt for about 30 minutes when the stadium lost power. With that delay, the game was only 31 minutes longer than the average game of the last decade, so when you remove that variable, Super Bowl XLVII was right on track. Also, who didn’t need 30 minutes to collect themselves after they witnessed Queen Bey’s iconic performance? Destiny’s Child reunited, for onside kick’s sake.

So, assuming the game doesn’t encounter any technical difficulties that create a significant delay, or it’s probably safe to bet that the winning team will be celebrating in the middle of the the U.S. Bank Stadium in their pre-made Super Bowl LII champions caps tens of minutes before the clock strikes 11 p.m. on the East Coast.