What time will Super Bowl 2024 start (and end) tonight?

Super Bowl Sunday is finally here, with the San Francisco 49ers taking on the Kansas City Chiefs tonight at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas beginning at 6:30 p.m. Eastern.

Over 100 million people will tune in to watch the game, which will air this year on CBS, with Jim Nantz and former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo in the booth to call their third Super Bowl together. Hopefully, it will be an exciting game, since their previous two — the Tampa Bay Buccaneers blowout of the Chiefs in Super Bowl LV and the New England Patriots’ low-scoring victory over the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LIII — were duds.

“Hopefully we don’t have as many punts as the Rams-Patriots game,” Romo joked during a conference call ahead of the game. “We were sitting there saying, ‘That was the best punt of the game, that was different from the other ones.’”

Adding to the intrigue this year is Taylor Swift, who is expected to fly into Las Vegas from Tokyo Saturday night following her “Eras Tour” performance and root for her boyfriend, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. Some experts believe Swift’s presence could cause millions of additional viewers to tune in, leading to predictions this could be the most-watched Super Bowl on record.

Despite her widespread appeal, fans in Philly might be more interested to see Jason Kelce pop up on the Super Bowl broadcast. Kelce’s shirtless antics went viral during the Chiefs’ win against the Buffalo Bills during the AFC playoffs, and he spent the past week in Las Vegas hitting the blackjack tables and taunting Hall of Famer Charles Barkley for never winning a championship. He was also spotted at a U2 concert at the Sphere and was caught shouting “Eagles!” during an Adele performance.

» READ MORE: Jason Kelce meets with TV executives at the Super Bowl as he considers retirement

The Super Bowl will also air on Nickelodeon, the first-ever alternate broadcast for the big game. Noah Eagle and Nate Burleson will handle the broadcasting duties, joined by SpongeBob SquarePants (voiced by Tom Kenny) and Patrick Star (voiced by Bill Fagerbakke) live in the booth. The broadcast will naturally be light on detailed analysis and heavy on slime, with SpongeBob and the rest of the Bikini Bottom band slated to kick off the game with a live performance of “Sweet Victory.”

“I think it broadens the reach of the Super Bowl,” said CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus. “The vast majority of people are still going to watch the traditional broadcast on CBS. But if we can convert young people into becoming young fans ... everybody benefits, including the NFL.”

ESPN also is broadcasting the Super Bowl, but only for international fans in Australia and New Zealand. Instead of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, ESPN’s No. 2 crew — Jeremy Fowler, former Eagles executive Louis Riddick, and Dan Orlovsky (whose path to ESPN went through Philly and 97.5 The Fanatic) — will call the game.

The average NFL game typically has 16 commercial breaks, and because of all the untimed stoppages in play, games don’t really have a set “end time.” The Super Bowl is even tougher to predict, thanks to all those expensive commercials and a full-blown concert at halftime, headlined this year by Usher.

The last three Super Bowls have been relatively brisk, lasting around three hours and 30 minutes. The Eagles’ 38-35 loss to the Chiefs during last year’s Super Bowl at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., lasted three hours and 31 minutes, ending around 10 p.m. Eastern. By comparison, the Eagles’ 41-33 win over the Patriots in Super Bowl LII in 2018 went on until 10:25 p.m., lasting just under four hours.

Since 2010, the longest Super Bowl remains Super Bowl XLVII in 2013 between the 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens, which lasted four hours and 14 minutes because of a 34-minute blackout in the Superdome in New Orleans.

Over the past 10 seasons, the average length of the Super Bowl is about three hours and 34 minutes, according to an Inquirer analysis. Using that measure, the game would end around 10:04 p.m. ET.

FiveThirtyEight studied NFL games during the 2020 season to find just 18 minutes of a typical three-hour broadcast involved game action. The numbers get more out of whack during the Super Bowl, where more than a quarter of an average broadcast is advertisements.