When will The Weeknd's performance start? Here's our best guess.
The Super Bowl halftime show is almost as iconic as the game itself. The show draws tens of millions of viewers, many of whom aren't particularly interested in the actual football game.
The show's start time isn't set in stone, as it depends on the timing of the game's first half. But based on history, we can offer a rough estimate of when The Weeknd's halftime set will begin this year.
Super Bowl LV between the Chiefs and Buccaneers is slated for Feb. 7 at 6:30 p.m. ET and, according to a 2012 Bloomberg report that examined two decades of Super Bowls, the average Super Bowl spans three hours and 35 minutes.
The Super Bowl is longer than the typical NFL game because the standard 15-minute halftime is stretched out to nearly 30 minutes for the extravagant halftime performance. And with one half of football typically lasting about an hour and a half, it's reasonable to expect The Weeknd's performance to start around 8 p.m. ET.
In 2016, the New York Times conducted a study looking at what time the Super Bowl's halftime show typically takes place using New York City taxi data. The premise was that the lower the use of taxis indicated something interesting was likely happening on the Super Bowl broadcast. And over the three years of data collected, taxi use was at its lowest at about 8 p.m. each year—around the time the halftime show typically begins.
That doesn't mean this year's halftime show will start exactly at 8 p.m. But if you want to make sure to catch The Weeknd's performance, we'd recommend tuning in to the CBS broadcast around that time. Or, you know, just watch the game.