The Best Alcohol Games to Play During Super Bowl LVI
You don’t have to be a real football fan to get the most out of your Super Bowl party. The big game is a great excuse to get together with friends, get together for buffalo chicken sauce, and drink to the point where you get emotionally immersed in a car commercial.
Even if you’re not into the sport itself, you can take your Super Bowl party to the next level by playing your own games along with the on-screen game. Gamify your game day if you want. (Also: Since this year’s Super Bowl LVI falls on February 13th, you’re basically preparing for Valentine’s Day. Just think about it.)
Before we dive into ideas for your own game day shenanigans, let me be clear: any game can be a drinking game, but not every game has to be a drinking game . You can take any of the gameplay below and assign non-alcohol related “penalties”. For example, my friend is in a fantasy league where the stakes are getting worse every year. This year, the loser must retake the SAT. So, for all the non-drinkers, please consider a game day scoring system in which the loser suffers very specific, unexpected consequences. Now, let the games begin.
Drink every time _____
Let’s start (football) with the simplest premise: drink every time [a pass occurs]. The main thing is to make a solid list in advance. You can assign different rules to different elements, such as “take a sip”, “finish your drink”, or “eat a hot wing”. The penalties (or rewards) are up to you, depending on how likely or important the list item is. Here are a few ideas to start your list, and feel free to add your own:
- Your team is scoring.
- The player points to the sky victoriously.
- There is a fine.
- Someone yells at the judge (on or off screen).
- The camera pans to the player’s child.
- Everyone at your party is horrified by the player’s child.
- The animal speaks in the advertisement.
- The child speaks in the advertisement.
- The animal and the baby are talking in the advertisement.
- Someone at your party says “sports ball” or any item from that list .
- The commentator mentions Tom Brady. He doesn’t play, but I’ll be damned if he doesn’t get picked up anyway.
commercial bingo
Print out blank bingo cards and write on the Super Bowl ad squares. These could be the names of the big companies you expect to see ads, or features of the ads themselves, such as overly patriotic cars, overly erotic perfumes, and overly crazy Mountain Dew fever dreams . As always, the first person to get BINGO wins.
Showdown at halftime
Take a break from on-screen gaming with a physics-based party game. Note: You can play them at any time, not just during halftime. I mean at this point you will probably be chained to Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar.
Some ideas for party games:
Inverted cup . Like in college, right? Divide your players into rams and bengals to keep the stakes high.
Paper football . Remember how you passed the time in math class by throwing folded paper “balls” at your friend’s desk? If you were a more attentive student than me,here is a quick guide on how to make and play paper football .
Squares . This is taken from The Subtle Joy . Here’s how they explain it:
Set up a grid of 10 squares and let everyone who plays choose an equal number of squares. Then assign a command to columns and a command to rows, and randomly assign numbers 0-9 to each column and row. At the end of each quarter, a winner (aka the drinker!) is chosen using each team’s last point total to see where they overlap.
Again, none of these party games should involve drinking. But they definitely can if you want it.
Create a pool based on your friends
We hinted at this above in the “drink every time [a skip occurs]” list. If you’re throwing a party with a good group of friends, test your knowledge of each other. Who will pay the least attention to the game? Who will have the most outrageous outbursts? Who’s to say how much they miss the iconic Jennifer Lopez and Shakira halftime show of 2020?
Write down all your questions and predictions ahead of time, then have fun debating who got the most rights at the end of the party.
Watch or stream the Super Bowl on Sunday, February 13, 2022. Start is scheduled for 6:30 pm ET / 3:30 pm PT. To your health.