Pizza Hut Will Give You Free Pizza For A Year If You Have 2019's First Super Bowl Baby

Super Bowl LIII is fast approaching — and, I’m sure, so are the due dates for many a human baby. And hey, guess what? If you happen to be one of those parents-to-be who might find themselves assuming parental duties during Super Bowl LIII, free pizza might be in your future: Pizza Hut is giving away free pizza for a year to the family of the first Super Bowl baby born in 2019. New parenthood might be a challenge, but at least you won’t have to worry about getting dinner on the table while you adjust to it, right?

It seems to have become something of a trend for restaurant and food brands to build parenting into their promos and contests; in 2018, for example, KFC offered $11,000 to the first family to name their baby “Harland” on Sept. 9 (“Harland” being Colonel Sanders’ first name, and Sept. 9 being his birthday), while in 2015, BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse challenged parents to name their offspring “Quinoa” in exchange for the chance to win $10,000 worth of food. (I can only assume that these promos are meant to capitalize on the fact that a lot of Gen Xers and millennials are becoming parents now. Nothing says “Gen X/millennial stereotype” like social media, quinoa, and unusual baby names.) Pizza Hut’s contest, however, relies not on naming your child something that might prove… difficult later on in life, but simply on your child being born at a particular time. That gimmick strikes me as somewhat safer, so at least there’s that.

Before we get into the details of the Pizza Hut contest, though, we need to define what exactly we mean by “Super Bowl baby.” There are, after all, a lot of things the phrase “Super Bowl baby” could mean; often, for example, it’s taken to mean babies who were conceived during or immediately after the Super Bowl. (Thanks, Seal.) For our purposes here, though, we’re talking about any baby born during the Super Bowl. The first Super Bowl baby of 2019, therefore, refers to the first baby born after kickoff on Super Bowl Sunday, which will occur on Feb. 3, 2019. Super Bowl LIII’s scheduled kickoff time is 6:30 p.m. E.T.

If your baby qualifies and is, in fact, determined to be the first Super Bowl baby of 2019, you’ll win free pizza for a year to “fuel [you] through 365 sleepless nights,” according to a press release — because goodness knows, as a new parent, you’ll be in for a lot of those — as well as tickets to next year’s game. (For the curious, Super Bowl LIV is currently scheduled for Feb. 2, 2020 in Miami Gardens, Fla.). I’ll be honest: Celebrating a one-year-old’s birthday simultaneously with the Super Bowl sounds like, uh, not a good time to me, but that might just be me. If it sounds like an awesome time to you, more power to you. The free pizza, by the way, will be awarded to you in the form of a $520 Pizza Hut gift card, per the Terms and Conditions; also, while you’ll win tickets to next year’s game, any transportation (ground and air) and accommodations required for you to attend will be your own responsibility. Just, y’know, FYI.

Entering is simple, even if bringing a new human into the world usually isn’t: All you have to do is tweet a photo of your bundle of Super Bowl joy, including the exact time of birth, using both the hashtags #PizzaHutSpecialDelivery and #promotion and tagging @PizzaHut to throw your proverbial hat into the ring. You don’t even have to buy anything from Pizza Hut; indeed, whether or not you order anything from Pizza Hut around your time of entry will have absolutely no bearing on you chances for success. You have until 24 hours after the conclusion of the game to submit your entry.

But lest you think it might be so simple to enter that you could easily game the system — say, by either claiming your Super Bowl baby was born earlier than they actually were, or by claiming to be the parent or guardian of someone else’s child entirely — think again. The full Terms and Conditions for the contest state in the “Prize Recipient Verification” section that, if you win, you’ll be required to provide “proof of being the parent or legal guardian of the child depicted in the submission”; additionally, you might be asked to furnish “proof of age, proof of child’s date and time of birth, residence, and identity,” including possibly needing to submit a copy of a valid birth certificate. Moral of the story: Don’t lie. You won’t get away with it.

Sure, Evil Queen. Whatever you say.

I do appreciate, by the way, that the contest’s language is relatively inclusive; the Terms and Conditions refer to “parent or legal guardian,” rather than just “parent,” and although entries do depend on the date and time of birth of human babies, you don’t necessarily have to have been the person to have given birth to that baby. There’s more than one way to become a parent, after all.

Anyway, even if you aren’t expecting to become a parent on Sunday, Pizza Hut still has some promos to keep you fed during the game; you’ll be able to get a large two-topping pizza for $7.99, for example, as well as snag some deals from the $5 Lineup. Check ‘em all out here.

Good luck, parents-to-be!