Lucas Oil Stadium

Lucas Oil Stadium is home to the Indianapolis Colts football team. The stadium came into operation in 2008 and replaced the RCA Dome Stadium. The famous RCA Dome was home to the Colts for many years but eventually was too small to accommodate all the team’s and the community’s activities. 

That led to the conception of this stadium. It was constructed to host the Super Bowl in 2012. The stadium’s construction brought together great minds from the area, including designs by HKS, Inc. The supervision of engineer Walter P. Moore ensured the stadium was well-designed and able to provide an ample playing field for the team and other events.

The name Lucas Oil Stadium is due to Lucas Oil purchasing the franchise rights for $120 million, a partnership that extends 20 years.

Features

The stadium has the following features:

• A seating capacity that’s 5,000 more than the RCA Dome stadium. Football games, more than 63,000 sports fans can watch comfortably. For basketball, this stadium can accommodate more than 70,000 people.
• Daktronics HD scoreboards are 97 feet wide and 53 feet tall.

Roof

The Lucas Oil Stadium roof is retractable. When opening, the roof divides into two retractable panels. Each panel weighs 2.7 million pounds, and they each take about 9-12 minutes to open and close. The roof is typically closed when the stadium isn’t in use.

Movable Window Wall

Lucas Oil Stadium boasts a large windowed wall on the north side. It allows lots of light to enter, whether the roof panels are closed or open.

Events

The stadium hosts football and basketball games. The first games here were between local high schools. Since then, some of the games that have been played in the stadium have included:

•  Super Bowl XLVI 
•  Wisconsin Badgers (American football league)

Besides being the home field for the Colts, there are also annual events that are held in Lucas Oil Stadium, including Circle City Classics, a national celebration of historically Black colleges and universities, which involves music, games, and a parade.

Check out our article about the USS Indianapolis Memorial.