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Every year, the NFL Super Bowl’s popularity grows here in Australia. It’s become a great excuse to take a half-day on Monday, bond with your team, support your local establishment, and get around a sport that most punters only pay attention to once a year.
Due to the awkward kick-off time of 10:00 am AEDT on Monday, 9th of January 2026, meetings get pushed, pubs open earlier, and group chats fill with people half-watching, half-looking up the rules, or avoiding a well-timed screen glance from the boss. Rarely do you get the chance to drink a few beers, wear your tightly fitted jersey and watch a halftime show supported by a now cold and chewy Parmi. It turns out that the Super Bowl isn’t just a sporting final but a global pop-culture takeover that happens to include the Big Game.
You don’t need to be an NFL tragic to understand why it matters, because you’re probably just here for the halftime show and ads anyway. You just need to know which parts are worth paying attention to, and that’s exactly why the team here at Man of Many has put their heads together to come up with an all-inclusive guide.
Super Bowl LX (What Aussies Need to Know)
- Matchup: New England Patriots vs Seattle Seahawks
- When: Monday, 9 February 2026 (AEDT)
Coverage from 9:00 am, kick-off around 10:00 am AEDT - Where: Levi’s Stadium, California
- Halftime show: Bad Bunny
- Watch in Australia: Channel 7, 7mate & 7plus (free), ESPN via Foxtel and Kayo
What the Super Bowl is (Why it Exists)
At its core, the Super Bowl is simple. One game. One champion. The final stop of a long, unforgiving season, where one mistake can undo months of work.
It exists because it had to. In the 1960s, American football was split across rival leagues competing for players, fans and relevance. When those leagues merged, they needed a single championship game to crown a true winner. That game became the Super Bowl.
Sixty editions later, it’s become something bigger by design. Sport, spectacle and commerce all carry equal weight. Halftime isn’t a pause. It’s a headline. Ads aren’t filler. They’re events.
Who’s Playing in Super Bowl LX (How they Got Here)
Super Bowl LX delivers a heavyweight pairing: the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks.
For New England, this is familiar territory. The Patriots are heading to a record-setting 12th Super Bowl appearance, their first since Tom Brady left the franchise in 2020. A win on Monday would give them a seventh Super Bowl title, breaking the long-standing tie with the Pittsburgh Steelers for the most championships in NFL history.
Seattle’s path has been less frequent, but no less meaningful. This will be the Seahawks’ fourth Super Bowl appearance, with their lone title coming in 2014 against the Denver Broncos. For the franchise, Super Bowl LX represents another chance to add to a legacy that has often lived just outside the NFL’s true dynasties.
Both teams arrive here the same way. Through a season that rewards consistency, then a sudden-death playoff run where one loss ends everything. No shortcuts. No flukes.
Where Super Bowl LX is Played (Why Here?)
Super Bowl LX will be played at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.
Unlike most sporting finals, the Super Bowl isn’t hosted by one of the teams playing in it. The NFL selects host cities years in advance, weighing infrastructure, stadium capacity, climate, transport and whether a city can absorb a full week of global attention without collapsing under the weight of it all.
That planning matters. The Super Bowl isn’t just a game. It’s a rolling media operation and a logistical stress test wrapped around a championship.
Home-stadium Super Bowls do happen, but they’re rare. Tampa Bay managed it in 2021. The Rams followed in 2022. This year isn’t one of those anomalies.
Levi’s Stadium is neutral ground. The atmosphere won’t be.
Who’s Performing at the Super Bowl LX Haltime Show (Why it’s a Must-Watch)
This year’s halftime show belongs to Bad Bunny, one of the most dominant global artists of the past decade and one entering Super Bowl LX at a genuine career peak.
Fresh off a landmark night at the Grammy Awards, where he became the first Spanish-language artist to win Album of the Year for DeBí TiRaR Más FOToS, Bad Bunny enters the Super Bowl with momentum that extends well beyond music. His acceptance speech also drew attention for its political edge, calling out recent immigration crackdowns and the actions of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying: “ICE out!” It’s left plenty of people wondering whether his halftime performance will carry a similar message.
As the headliner for Super Bowl LX, that context matters. The halftime show stopped being background noise in 1993, when Michael Jackson turned it into a cultural centrepiece. Since then, the slot has been reserved for artists big enough to command attention well beyond the game itself.
That mix of spectacle, expectation, and unpredictability is why non-fans still tune in. Twelve minutes. One stage. A global audience is watching for more than just the music. At this point, that tension is the appeal.
Super Bowl Ads (Why They Matter)
Super Bowl ads are what happen when massive budgets meet national confidence, with a dash of international attention.
Brands pay extraordinary money for a single slot, not because it guarantees sales, but because it guarantees attention. Some aim for laughs. Some go sentimental. A few try to say something meaningful. Plenty miss entirely.
There’s one catch for Australians. The broadcast we get isn’t always the same one going out in the US. Local coverage in between the game often replaces American ad breaks with local commercials.
So, unless you’re watching on the high seas, most Australians see the big trailers later. Clips online. Rankings the next day. Group chats arguing about whether anything was actually good.
The entertainment isn’t just the ads. It’s watching what brands thought would land, and how quickly the internet decides otherwise. Don’t worry. We’ll cover it all here at Man of Many.
How to Watch the Super Bowl Live in Australia (Where it’s Streaming)
Super Bowl LX will be shown live in Australia on Monday, 9 February, with coverage building well before kick-off.
Channel 7’s free-to-air coverage begins from around 9:00 am AEDT across 7mate and 7plus, before the main game broadcast from around 10:00 am AEDT. Seven is leaning into the occasion this year, with extended pre-game coverage, local hosting, and live reporting from inside Levi’s Stadium rather than a straight re-broadcast of the US feed.
For viewers who prefer a more traditional NFL presentation, ESPN will carry the game live via Foxtel, Kayo Sports, and Disney+. ESPN’s coverage includes dedicated NFL build-up and analysis, with Australian Super Bowl champion Jordan Mailata joining the on-air team to add a local perspective.
If you’re committing to the full broadcast, it’s worth noting that the average Super Bowl telecast runs around three and a half hours, before post-game coverage stretches it further. So, plan accordingly.
Where Australians actually watch the Super Bowl (and the best places to go)
If you’re not watching at home, at a mate’s place, or half-following along at work with one eye on Slack, the next question is simple. Where can you actually go? Well, if you’re in Sydney and Melbourne, Super Bowl Monday is no longer a novelty. Venues open early, screens are booked, and breakfast menus stretch into lunch.
We’ve gone through and updated our city guides to keep it simple:
If you’re on the far west coast of Australia, then listen up. Over in Perth, Optus Stadium will host its largest Super Bowl watch party yet for Super Bowl LX, turning the Sports Lounge and stadium super screens into a full-morning event.
Outside those cities, the rules don’t change much. Look for sports pubs with multiple screens, venues already comfortable with early kick-offs and places happy to run live sport through a weekday morning. In most capitals, a handful of pubs and casinos now treat the Super Bowl like a fixture rather than a one-off.
Australian Players in Super Bowl LX (Why You Should Back Them)
Yes, and it’s a meaningful one. Sydney-born punter Michael Dickson will represent the Seahawks in Super Bowl LX, having established himself as one of the premier players at his position in the league. Dickson, a former UNSW student and Sydney Swans reserves player, was once described by Tom Brady as “the best punter in the league”.
Dickson will aim to join Jordan Mailata as the second Australian to win a Super Bowl, after Mailata’s victory with the Philadelphia Eagles last year.
So if you don’t have a team in mind, maybe just cheer on our homegrown talent instead.
When it’s Over (and Monday Goes On)
Once the confetti falls and the trophy is lifted, most Australians just get on with the day. Meetings resume. Coffees get topped up. Someone explains why their calendar went suspiciously quiet for a few hours. If you’ve managed a Monday sickie, the day simply rolls on.
That’s always been the Super Bowl’s appeal here. It takes over a morning, then disappears. If you caught the game, the halftime show, or even just the conversation around it, you were part of it.
See you next year when we do it all over again.
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