Will astronauts aboard the ISS get to watch Super Bowl LX?

The National Football League's annual Super Bowl television telecast is practically a national holiday and traditionally one of the most watched sporting events on the planet, with roughly 200 million fans around the world in 130 countries tuning in to cheer on their favorite squads.

On Sunday, NASA's mission control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston will beam the Super Bowl LX showdown between Seattle and New England to the three remaining people aboard the ISS. That trio consists of just NASA's Christopher Williams and cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev of Russia's space agency Roscosmos. Last month’s first-ever medical evacuation of SpaceX Crew-11 brought NASA's Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman, Japan's Kimiya Yui, and cosmonaut Oleg Platonov safely back to Earth on Jan. 15., leaving just three on the orbital lab.

When inquiring as to whether NASA has any special Super Bowl events or activities planned for the three ISS inhabitants, JSC's acting news chief Chelsey Ballarte directed us to the Jan. 30 press briefing for NASA's upcoming Crew-12 mission to the ISS where Dina Contella, Deputy Manager for NASA's International Space Station Program told reporters that the agency has it covered. "If they'd like to watch the Super Bowl, we'll give them that chance," Contella said. "We'll have to see how that overlaps, and if there's any critical events for ISS, but certainly we could record it and if necessary, play it back."

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But it'll be a late night affair for the astronauts circling the globe at 17,500 mph (28,000 km/h) some 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth, since life aboard the space station operates on a fixed Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) schedule and not any single country's time zone, which means that kickoff won't occur until 11:30 p.m. for the orbiting crew.

Super Bowl LX will see the NFC Champion Seattle Seahawks take on the AFC Champion New England Patriots on Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026 at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California. Kickoff is officially scheduled for 3:30 p.m. PT/6:30 p.m. ET on NBC and streaming on Peacock.

Any allegiances to either the Seattle Seahawk or the New England Patriots for the three left on the ISS is pure speculation, but since the pair of Roscosmos astronauts were raised in Russia they might not follow American football as closely but are certainly free to cheer for either team.

Christopher Williams has both west coast and east coast affiliations having been born in New York City but received his bachelor's degree at Stanford University in Palo Alto, just down the road from Santa Clara's Levi's Stadium where the game will be played.

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Will astronauts aboard the ISS get to watch Super Bowl LX?