Super Bowl Party Games Timed to Every Part of the Broadcast

The games that work for a mixed crowd are the ones that need no football knowledge to play and very little attention to keep playing, because at most Super Bowl parties only part of the room is there for the football.

A typical living room on Super Bowl Sunday holds the die-hard fan who wants quiet on third down, the friend who's only there for the commercials and the halftime show, and a few kids who drifted off before the first quarter ended. A game that rewards knowing the playbook splits that room in two, while a game driven by chance, by the ads or by the music pulls everyone into the same conversation. That's why squares, commercial bingo and a halftime card turn up at nearly every good party, and why a football trivia quiz tends to be won by the same person every single year.

Timing matters just as much as the game. Each one below is tied to a fixed part of the broadcast, so nothing competes with a big play for the room's attention, and the table shows what each game asks of you as the host before anyone arrives.

Super Bowl squares should be your all-night game because every guest holds a stake in the score from kickoff to the final whistle, and winning takes no football knowledge at all, only the right last digits at the end of a quarter.

The game runs on a board of 100 squares, with one team along the top and the other down the side. Guests claim squares before the game, and only once the board is full do the digits 0 through 9 get drawn at random for each side, which is why nobody can pick a good square on purpose. At the end of the first quarter, at halftime, at the end of the third quarter and at the end of the game, you take the last digit of each team's score and find the square where the two meet, so the board above pays exactly one square for the quarter it shows. Some groups call it a block pool or a box pool, and our Super Bowl block pool explainer shows it's the same game under another name.

Squares works as the backbone of a party because it keeps going after the non-fans stop following the plays. A guest who couldn't tell you what a field goal is worth will still be glued to the TV in the last two minutes of the second quarter if a late kick moves the home team's digit onto their square, and that's the moment a quiet corner of the room joins the game. Most boards carry a prize at each of the four breaks, and our guide on how to make Super Bowl squares walks through setting the price, writing down the prizes and getting the board filled well before the day.

If the board fills before the party, turn the draw into the first event of the night. Pull folded slips from a bowl or put our Super Bowl squares number generator up on the TV, because watching the digits land is when guests start caring which squares they hold, and once the numbers are on the board it stays locked for the rest of the game.

Before kickoff, hand out a prediction card, a short list of questions every guest answers on arrival and scores as the night goes on, because it gives early arrivals something to argue about and hands everyone a second rooting interest beyond their squares.

Keep it to eight or ten questions that anyone can answer with a guess: heads or tails on the coin toss, which team scores first, whether that first score is a touchdown or a field goal, which team leads at halftime, whether anyone misses a kick, and the combined final score, which doubles as the tiebreaker. Mix in a couple for the guests who aren't there for the football, such as whether the broadcast cuts to a celebrity in the stands before the first quarter ends, and you've got a card the whole room can play.

Collect the cards before the coin toss so nobody can quietly change an answer, and score each question as it's settled rather than all at the end, since a running leaderboard keeps the game alive through the slow stretches of the third quarter. Give one point per correct answer, and hand the winner something small and fun, like first pick from the dessert table or a cheap plastic trophy that sits on their shelf until next year's party.

Commercial bingo and a rate-the-commercials scorecard are the two games built for the ad breaks, and they turn the part of the broadcast that half your guests came for into a game of its own.

For commercial bingo, fill each card with things that show up in ads rather than particular brands, since nobody knows the lineup ahead of time: a dog, a baby, a talking animal, a celebrity cameo, a car on an empty mountain road, a movie trailer, a song from the '90s, or a sequel to one of last year's ads. Mix up the order so no two cards match, hand out a pen with each one, and whoever completes a line first shouts it out and takes a small prize. Making the cards takes about half an hour the day before, and printing a few spares covers the guests who turn up late.

Rating the commercials works well alongside it, especially for guests who'd rather talk than mark a card. Give everyone a set of paper plates numbered 1 to 5, have them hold up a score as each ad ends, and keep a running tally on a whiteboard or a note on your phone. By the end of the night you've got the room's favorite and least favorite ad of the year, which often gets a bigger reaction than the final score does.

Super Bowl halftime usually runs 25 to 30 minutes, roughly twice the 13 minutes of a regular-season halftime, so plan one game tied to the show and one that gets people up off the couch.

The halftime show card works like the pregame one, only built around the performance: which song opens the show, whether a surprise guest joins the headliner, how many outfit changes happen, whether there are fireworks, and which song closes it out. The show itself tends to last 12 to 14 minutes, so it's quick to score, and the guests who've been waiting all night for it are usually the ones who win.

For the rest of the break, move the energy outside or into a hallway with a football toss. Set up a laundry basket, a hula hoop hung from a branch or a row of buckets worth different points, give each guest three throws from a line, and keep score on the same whiteboard as the commercials. Halftime is also when you confirm the second squares winner from the running score, and announcing it before the second half kicks off gives the room one more cheer to carry back to the couch.

The Super Bowl party games that work best for kids get them moving and hand out a winner fast, so a football toss, a balloon-football relay and a kids' squares board played for candy will hold their attention far longer than the game on TV.

Kids lose interest in the broadcast long before halftime, so give them games with a winner every few minutes. A balloon-football relay, where two teams bat a balloon down the hallway without letting it touch the floor, works in any home, and a touchdown-dance contest judged by the adults during a commercial break is a guaranteed hit with the younger ones. Commercial bingo works for kids too, especially with little pictures on the cards in place of words.

A kids' squares board is the one that surprises parents. Use a 25-square board so there are fewer squares to fill, play for pieces of candy or first pick from the dessert table, and let the kids draw the numbers themselves. Our breakdown of how many squares are in a football pool explains how the 25-square board above pairs the digits two to a line, and kids who have never followed a game will suddenly want to know the score at the end of every quarter.

You run them by settling every game and prize in advance and tying each one to a fixed moment in the broadcast, so the games fill the gaps instead of fighting the big plays for attention. The whole night fits into five moments:

1. The day before, make the cards and get the squares board filled.
2. As guests arrive, hand out prediction cards and draw the numbers.
3. At every ad break, play commercial bingo and score the ads.
4. At each quarter break, confirm the squares winner from the score.
5. At halftime, score the show card and run the football toss.

The squares board is the one game that needs checking all night, and it's where a shared online board saves the host the most work. Whichever Super Bowl party games you pick, running the squares board on Play Squares lets guests claim their own squares from a link before the party, draws the numbers once the board is full, and follows the score live during the game, highlighting the square that's on track to win the quarter still being played rather than only the settled winner once it ends. Guests check the board on their own phones instead of crowding around you to ask whether their square just won, so you get to play the other games and watch the Super Bowl with everyone else.

The Super Bowl squares page shows the live board in action, and our Super Bowl squares template prints a paper sheet if you'd rather keep the board on the fridge. Either way, pick your all-night game first, add two or three games for the breaks, and write every prize down before the first guest walks through the door.