Kickoff time is scheduled for approximately 6:30 p.m. EST. This will be the first Super Bowl to be played in Indianapolis, and the first time in the history of the game it will be played in consecutive years in a retractable roof stadium. This will also be only the fourth time that the Super Bowl is played in a cold-weather city, after Detroit's hosting of XVI and XL as well as Minneapolis's hosting of XXVI. Downtown Indianapolis, the home of Lucas Oil Stadium, will feature an outdoor Super Bowl Village and other programs at the Indiana Convention Center.
Per convention as an even-numbered Super Bowl, the Patriots as the AFC representatives will have the home team designation. Super Bowl XLVI will be the sixth Super Bowl in which the two teams had competed in a previous Super Bowl match up, as the Giants and Patriots had previously met in Super Bowl XLII. Both head coaches (Tom Coughlin and Bill Belichick) and both starting quarterbacks (Eli Manning and Tom Brady) return from Super Bowl XLII.
