Printable Super Bowl Squares Game
When I was working full-time my office would always do a little Super Bowl Squares game for Super Bowl Sunday. I’m not the only one. It’s one of the most popular things to do on Super Bowl Sunday! I mean other than eat all the spinach artichoke dip and chili (you’ve gotta try this Cincinnati chili recipe if you haven’t already)! It’s a fun game that keeps things interesting for everyone even if your team isn’t playing or your team isn’t playing well. I’ve put together everything I know about how Super Bowl Squares works – some different options for playing, and a free printable template you can use to play with your family and friends! And if you need more games, this Super Bowl commercial bingo and Super Bowl trivia game are great!
What is Super Bowl Squares?
Super Bowl Squares (also often called football squares) is a super fun game played during the Super Bowl. People get squares in a large grid and can win money or prizes based on the scores in the game. That’s a simplified version of it at least. Most of the time people play squares as a betting game – everyone puts in say $5 per square – and then the money gets split among four winners. You can totally do that using the free printable template in this post but you could also just play it as a non-betting game where people get squares and whoever is hosting the party gives away prizes for the winners. That’s how we play it – no betting necessary! Just like this Super Bowl guessing game, it’s just for fun (and to win a little prize!)
How Does Super Bowl Squar Work?
Whether you call it Super Bowl Squares or football squares, it works the same way and uses the same football squares template. You have a 10×10 grid of squares on a paper (or use the free printable template in this post). Each of those squares gets someone’s name in it. On either side of the grid you add the names of the teams playing. And then along the sides of the grid you add the numbers 0-9. Keep reading for some unique ways to fill out the grid to keep it interesting and fair. Once the grid is filled out with names, team names, and numbers you’re ready to play. At the end of each quarter and at the end of the game, find the square that matches the last number in the game score. So for instance, we played the game during the Chiefs vs. Texans game and at the end of the third quarter the final score was Texans 31 – Chiefs 41. So we looked in the grid for the square that matched Texans = 1 and Chiefs = 1. And my 7 year old cousin won a gift card for her winning square! Do the same thing for every quarter and give out a prize (or a portion of the money that people put into the game) at the end of every quarter and then at the end of the game. Anytime I’ve done it with my office, the final game score winner gets more of the pot than the quarter winners. So the split might look something like this: Everyone puts $5 in per square. $5 x 100 squares = $500 total pot.
1st quarter winner – $1002nd quarter winner – $1003rd quarter winner – $1004th quarter winner – $200
In the case of just giving out prizes, I did $10 gift card for the first three quarters and a $25 one for the fourth quarter.
How to Fill in the Super Bowl Squares Template
Okay, so I’ve created two different templates for you – one that is totally blank (no numbers or team names) and one that already has the numbers 0-9 lined up on either side.
Using a Blank Card
If you’re using the blank card, here’s the best way to do it:
Have people add their name into a square (or two or three depending on how many people are at your party). Once all of the squares are filled out, randomly pick the numbers 0-9 for the first side and put them onto the template. Then do it again for the other side. So one side might be 4, 2, 9, 7, 5, 1, 0, 3, 6, 8 and the other side might be 1, 4, 5, 2, 8, 9, 0, 3, 6, 7. This will make it so that no one knows what numbers they’re picking – they’re just filling in random squares.
Using a Pre-Filled Template
If you’re using the template that already has 0-9 put in place on the sides, you’ll need to randomize how you’re putting in the people’s names. If you have 100 people playing (not likely), put the names into a hat or into random.org and just start at the top left corner and go through filling in the names randomly. If you have less than 100 people playing, determine how many people are playing exactly. Starting with 1, put the number in the top left corner of the grid. Going to the right (and then down to the next row), go through all of the numbers over and over again to fill in the 100 squares. If the number of people doesn’t equal 100, either leave some “non-winner” boxes or a few people will end up with extra boxes – but it’ll be random who ends up with extra boxes so they shouldn’t complain. Once you’ve filled in the grid, now write down everyone’s name and put them in a hat (or put them in random.org). Pull the names out of the hat to determine the number they are on the grid. So for example, we had 16 people playing. We filled out the Super Bowl Squares template with the numbers 1-16 and then pulled names to determine who was 1, who was 2, and so on. The other option is to just print out the number combinations (e.g,. 0-0, 0-1, 0-2) and let people draw them randomly. That’s what we did during our latest version of the game during the AFC championship and it worked great! You can get a printable sheet that already has all of these combinations for you to print and cut out here!
Best Numbers for Super Bowl Squares
As we were playing we started talking about the best numbers for Super Bowl Squares and while it doesn’t really matter because you don’t get to pick your numbers (no matter how you set it up), it’s still fun to know because it impacts the likelihood that you’ll win! I know that there are likely some stats on “most likely football scores,” but I didn’t want to share those. Instead, I looked at the final scores of all the Super Bowl games in the history of ever. And if you don’t know when the Super Bowl started, maybe you should check out these Super Bowl trivia questions! Here’s the likelihood of these numbers (based on the Super Bowl final scores) being a winning square.
0 = 8.5%1 = 14.15%2 = 5.66%3 = 5.66%4 = 11.32%5 = 6.60%6 = 5.66%7 = 16.98% 8 = 14.15%9 = 6.60%
So based on that, the best numbers for Super Bowl Squares would be 7, 8, 1, and 4.
Prize Ideas
If you don’t want to do cash here are some fun prize ideas!
Gift cards to a sports bar like Buffalo Wild Wings, Chili’s, or Dave & Busters. You can order a variety of gift cards here. A “super” bowl full of football themed treats and prizesA football gift basketGame ticketsFootball themed board gameFootball trophy of some sortTeam jerseys or apparelSuper Bowl trivia bookA collection of football movies
More Super Bowl Party Games
Super Bowl guessing gameSuper Bowl commercial bingoSuper Bowl trivia gameFootball bingo cardsFootball scavenger huntSuper Bowl party gamesSuper Bowl minute to win it games
Download the Template
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The file will include:
Totally blank template (no numbers or names) Template with numbers filled in across the top