Should I deliver during the Super Bowl for Doordash Uber Eats Instacart Grubhub?

The matchup has been set. The Eagles and the Chiefs. Like every year, millions will gather around their TV's to watch the most popular television event in the United States.

Nearly 100 million people will watch the SuperBowl. Only the World Cup final draws more viewers worldwide, though US viewership falls well below the numbers who will watch the NFL championship.

Many will get together for viewing parties. Which begs the question:

Should I go deliver during the Super Bowl? Will it pay well or will it be a disaster? My experience is it's been a little more profitable than most days, but not as much so as I would have expected. Overall, I've found I made the most between about an hour before kickoff through the end of halftime. From there, things slowed quite a bit.

Things may be different where you are. For that reason, I can't tell you if it makes sense for you. What I can do is offer some questions, that I'll dive into a bit more later on:

• How important is watching the game to you?
• Who will be ordering food for delivery in your area?
• Will viewership be up or down where you are?
• Will there be too many drivers competing for orders?
• What is delivery like in your market during other times when delivery peaks?
• Will peak pay and bonuses draw too many drivers out?
• Will people in your area tip well when wait times could be longer?
• Are restaurants in your area good at keeping up with high demand?
• What is shop-and-deliver like in your area (are stores busier or slower)?

My past history delivering during the Super Bowl for Doordash, Uber Eats, Grubhub, and Postmates.

My experience has been that the Super Bowl is one of the best times to deliver.

Folks are gathering with their friends. They don't want to miss the action. Or those that don't care about the action don't want to miss the commercials. So they want to bring food in.

I've done delivery gigs in the past, usually as a side job working directly for a particular restaurant. I did a couple of Super Bowls back then, and they were always good days to deliver.

I started delivering as an independent contractor in February 2018, so I have a number of big games under my belt. It's usually been a really good time to deliver in my market.

When is the best time to deliver during the Super Bowl?

I'm geeky enough to have tracked every delivery. I broke down the hourly numbers for two Super Bowl games and, when looking at it in two-hour periods, I noticed a pattern.

I remember being frustrated in the second year of my comparison. At the time, I thought my numbers had dropped a lot because things were really slow. But when I compared them, I noticed that it felt slow because things started slow, and it turned out that I had started delivering earlier the second year than I had the year before.

The second year, I started out earlier, expecting to do much better because people would be ordering in for their parties. Either they hadn't started ordering earlier as I thought they would, or my market was just more saturated with drivers who were all trying to make that Super Bowl money.

Orders were slow coming in. And when they came in, they weren't all that great. I was seriously starting to think about hanging it up. But then about 3 (when I started the year before) things picked up.

So here's the breakdown by the time of day, all in profit per hour (what was left over after deducting 30 cents per mile):

• 1-3 PM: $16.48 in year 2. Did not deliver in year 1.
• 3-5 PM (Kickoff 4:30). $24.45 in year 2. $25.41 in year 1.
• 5-7 PM (basically through just after halftime): $29.33 in year 2, $33.45 in year 1.
• After 7 PM: $20.56 in year 2, $15.84 in year 1.

Bottom line: Between 3 and 7 (Mountain time, I'm in Denver) were the best. It's hard to say how much that will vary by time zone, as some of it is influenced on when people will eat supper. 5 to 9 (eastern time) could be a different dynamic than 2-6 Pacific.

How do you decide if you should deliver for Doordash, Grubhub, Uber Eats, etc. on Superbowl Sunday?

That depends on a lot of things. We'll talk about the factors that should go into your decision.

I can't tell you what the best thing to do is. How things are in your town could be very different than how they were in Denver.

The other thing to keep in mind is, my past results don't necessarily mean things will be the same this year. The numbers I showed you took place before the pandemic. Things changed in delivery pretty dramatically, though often for the better. However, the economy has been changing, and 2023 could be a different story.

Here are the questions you should think about:

How important is the game to you?

Let me put it this way:

Why do you deliver? For a lot of us, it's about enhancing our lives in some way shape, or form.

One thing I always try to stress: Remember your why. Remember why you're doing this.

There's a time when your why would make you want to stay home and just enjoy the game. Or maybe your why says “nah, this is too great an opportunity.” Only you can decide.

I'm a huge football fan. But I've been more than content to just enjoy the game on the radio, mainly because delivering is fun for me.

And oh, by the way, Kevin Harlen is a national treasure. I'd rather listen to him on the radio than just about any TV announcer. If I were to stay home and watch it on TV I think I'd be inclined to turn down the volume on the TV and listen to Kevin announce it on the radio.

Just putting that out there.

In the end, you have to measure the potential against the experience of watching the game.

Several years ago, my favorite team (believe it or not, not the Broncos) was playing, but my finances were much tighter at the time. I did a side hustle delivering for a pizza chain, so I decided I needed the money more than the experience.

It's weird to think of things in terms of “needing” the game. But that's where I think it's just a quality-of-life thing.

And the beauty of it is, we get to make that decision.

Who's going to be ordering food?

There are a few factors here.

Fewer people will be at the sports bars. Between bars being shut down and others having capacity limits, there's just less space for people to watch games.

That means more people at home.

In a time when we're still conscious about social distancing, I think that also means there will be fewer and smaller watch parties.

That can lead to opportunity.

Will viewership be down?

There are a lot of factors, and they can vary from market to market.

Our TV viewing habits have changed a lot in the last few years, thanks to the pandemic.

Obviously, viewership will be higher in Missouri and Pennsylvania. That's a substantial difference compared to if Los Angelos, Chicago or New York teams are involved.

There are enough die-hard fans out there that they'll watch, no matter who plays.

Weather in your area could make a difference. Will people be cooking out more or ordering food in?

Will there be too many drivers?

This to me is the wildcard.

Grubhub, Doordash, Uber Eats, Instacart, all of the delivery companies have signed up drivers like crazy this year. And they seem to be less concerned about whether they have too many drivers out there.

And even though it seems demand for deliveries has dropped quite a bit from the peak days of the pandemic, a good share of the drivers who flocked to delivery gigs are still out there

Many markets are extremely saturated out there. If there's the same number of orders (or even more) this year but a lot more drivers, that still translates into a lower-paying day.

Remember that these gig delivery companies don't have your best interests in mind. Their main priority is to make sure they get as many orders delivered.

If it comes to a choice between having too many drivers on the road and thus drivers not getting paid, or not having enough drivers on the road and orders not getting delivered, they're going to go with too many drivers every time.

What's your market like in other times when you should be swamped?

Big events and major sporting events were always great times to deliver in past years.

For me, in my market, not so much. Things have been slower than normal during the playoffs and during other major events.

Snow has been another major thing that has ALWAYS meant good pay in the past. The past few times it's snowed, earnings have been average or less than average.

What that tells me is that in my market, there are a lot of drivers who know when they can make good money and they're all going out at the same time.

In fact, it's been significant enough that I'd be much more tempted to stay home just for that reason. If I go out this year on Superbowl, it's got more to do with having something to write about than it is about anticipating some really good profits.

Will Peak Pay Syndrome raise its ugly head?

Peak pay is the term for the per-delivery bonus that Doordash uses. I call it Peak Pay syndrome when Doordash offers a ridiculous bonus in some zone and all of a sudden everyone wonders why they're not getting any offers.

It's because everyone's chasing the peak pay and, surprise, there are now too many drivers in the zone.

There's nothing like a bonus to get drivers out of the woodwork. If Doordash is offering unusually high peak pay, or Uber Eats has a nice surge going, everybody and their brother will be out there.

I've learned that usually, a regional bonus works like a vacuum. All the couriers get sucked into an area where the bonus is high. If I can find an adjacent zone that has a smaller bonus, I can usually make more money because it's so busy I have my pick of offers.

However, if everyone is throwing out bonuses at the same time, they're often competing for the same drivers. Sometimes in the worst of weather, even the best of incentives and peak pay bonuses will not be enough to get enough drivers out on the road.

What will tips be like?

Tips could be down. That could be tied to the economy, or to the fact that many people don't have parties quite the size they did before the pandemic

I've delivered some large orders of wings and other things on Super Bowl Sundays. I've had a harder time finding parking at the customers' houses because of all the people there for a party.

If there are indeed fewer and smaller big parties, that also means fewer big orders.

Which means smaller tips.

There's another piece to the tipping puzzle: How are people tipping lately anyway? I'm hearing more and more people discuss how tips are smaller than ever. How much of that is the economy being sluggish?

Smaller tips mean less pay per delivery. Keep that in mind when deciding.

How are the restaurants keeping up with orders during times like this?

High-demand delivery times usually mean one of two things:

Wait times at restaurants are at their very lowest, or they're at their very best. There's rarely any in-between.

The restaurant may be overwhelmed and, as some of my family like to put it, they can't get their poop in a group.

Or there's enough of a shortage of drivers that the food is almost guaranteed to be ready when you get there.

One year, I took an offer from a Buffalo Wild Wings store against my better judgment. This particular restaurant often had rather long waits. The pay was good on this offer, and if it looked like too much of a circus I could always cancel out. I pull up to the restaurant and…..

It. Was. Ahhhhh. MAZING. They set aside a party room as a staging room for deliveries. It was incredibly organized, there was someone to direct traffic, and I was in and out so fast. I had four different deliveries that day from that particular store and it was incredible.

You know your restaurants. You know the ones who have it together and the ones that don't. Think about what they'll be like. Busy times will make inefficient restaurants a nightmare and you can get sucked in to some terrible waits.

Would the risk of unhappy customers create a bigger problem than rewards?

Unhappy customers can have some really bad consequences. On top of that, gig companies are cracking down a lot on bad deliveries.

Unfortunately, they're also cracking down on good deliveries that might look bad. All of these companies are too lazy to really investigate.

If a customer is angry about their food being late, they may report it was never delivered. Or perhaps an item was missed and customer service interpreted it as not delivered.

Chaos at the restaurant may mean someone else picked up your order, and somewhere along the line, you get accused of picking it up and not delivering. It happens.

Doordash, Grubhub, Uber Eats, none of these companies have your back when it comes to the customer.

Is there a greater risk of an unfair deactivation, and is that risk worth the few extra dollars?

What will the big game mean for shopping (Doordash shop and deliver, Instacart, Shipt, etc.)?

Here's what I've noticed at grocery stores on Super Bowl Sundays:

Sunday morning and early afternoon, the stores are swamped. Everyone's trying to get their last minute buys done for their parties.

However, once the game starts, the stores are empty.

Things could be different in other areas. I live in a football-crazy area (even though the Broncos have been historically awful lately).

When I started in 2018, the dynamic around delivery was very different than it is today. It was all about getting meals. If people are grilling out more, they ordered delivery less. However, with the growth of grocery delivery options, more will take advantage of the convenience.

Shopping could be more profitable. However, if you get bogged down with long lines at the register, the additional time involvement could be a problem.

What does that mean about if I should deliver on Super Bowl Sunday?

As I write this, I'm on the fence.

I'm seeing things slow down quite a bit in my market. I wonder what that will mean this year, if there are less orders and more drivers competing for them.

For me, Super Bowl Sunday is always a fun thing. Even if I don't care about any of the teams. I kind of look at it like I do bad weather: I'm only going out there if I'm reasonably certain I'll be able to make more than usual.

You might find that driving around on Super Bowl Sunday is the perfect escape from the madness that goes with the day. Delivering may be a no-brainer for you.

I don't know what this year will bring. There is no more normal thanks to the pandemic. I think in some towns, delivery will be extremely profitable. In other areas, it's going to drag.

So I can't tell you for sure whether it will be a good idea to deliver for Doordash, Uber Eats, Instacart, Grubhub, or many of the smaller gigs out there. The delivery companies will be busy.

The question is, will that mean better earnings for the individual courier?

I can't tell you if it makes sense, but hopefully these questions helped you think through whether it does or not. Maybe you give it a shot and what's the worst that could happen? You decide it's not worth it and call it a day.

And maybe it's just a good day to sit back and watch some cheesy commercials and hopefully some good football.