On Sunday, February 5, the New England Patriots and the New York Giants will face off in Super Bowl XLVI at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana.
For most of us who are Patriots fans know this as the “The House that Peyton Built”, as it is the regular season home of Indianapolis Colts and their current quarterback Peyton Manning. He just happens to be one the Patriots nemeses and the older brother of the Giants quarterback, Eli Manning.
This is the first Super Bowl to be held in Indianapolis and Lucas Oil Stadium, which opened for the 2008 NFL season. Designed by HKS and A2so4 Architecture at a cost of $720 million, “The Luke” sits 63,000 for the Colts regular season games but for the Super Bowl it will be expanded to 70,000. It has a Field Turf playing surface.
This isn’t the first big event at Lucas Oil having recently hosted the first Big Ten Football Championship game and the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four in 2010.
The all purpose stadium which replaced the RCA Dome, that resided next door, features both a retractable roof and a window wall that allows for play indoors or outdoors. The building features a brown brick exterior trimmed in Indiana Limestone and is meant to compliment the other older structures downtown.
NFL rules state that the home team will make the call 90 minutes prior to game time on whether or not the roof will be opened or closed. But in the event of a Super Bowl game that decision is left up to the NFL. With Indianapolis being a ‘winter weather” city expect the roof at “The Drum” to be closed on Super Sunday.
The stadium, in addition to the regular seating, has 137 luxury suites, eight field suites, 12 super suites and the Quarterback Suite, a 200 seat semi-private party room.
Above the playing surface are two high definition scoreboards; each one measuring 97 feet by 53 feet and situated in opposing corners.
Lucas Oil Stadium and the city of Indianapolis were awarded the Super Bowl back in 2008 based on a bidding system. They were selected over Houston, Texas and Glendale, Arizona, the site of the last Super Bowl between the Giants and the Patriots in February 2008.
Here is a link for a list of prohibited items at Lucas Oil Stadium.
Maps and Directions for Lucas Oil Stadium.
A 360 degree view of Lucas Oil Stadium.
Follow Steve on Twitter @SteveMichaelsII
Photo credit: AroundIndy.com
