Super Bowl XLVI

Super Bowl XLVI will be the 46th annual edition of the Super Bowl in American football, and the 42nd annual championship game of the modern-era National Football League (NFL). It will be held on February 5, 2012 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana. This will be the first Super Bowl to be played in Indianapolis. This will also be only the fourth time that the Super Bowl is held in a cold-weather city, after Detroit, Michigan's hosting of Super Bowl XVI and Super Bowl XL as well as Minneapolis's hosting of Super Bowl XXVI. Downtown Indianapolis, the home of Lucas Oil Stadium will feature an outdoor Super Bowl Village and other programs at Indiana Convention Center.

In the United States, the game will be televised nationally by NBC.

Host selection process
Three cities presented bids for the game:
 * On January 31, 2008, the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau announced their plans to host the game at Reliant Stadium, and holding events at the surrounding Reliant Park, hoping that their city would host the championship game for the second time since Reliant Stadium opened.
 * On February 19, 2008, the City of Indianapolis, led by Colts owner Jim Irsay and Indianapolis mayor Greg Ballard, officially announced details about their intentions to bid for Super Bowl XLVI. Part of the agreement included a proposal to build a practice facility on the campus of Arsenal Technical High School that would be utilized by the school after the Super Bowl.
 * On March 6, 2008, one month after hosting Super Bowl XLII at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, the second Super Bowl held in the Phoenix metropolitan area, the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee led by Committee chair Mike Kennedy formally announced their intentions to bid for another one.

NFL franchise owners selected the Indianapolis bid at their meeting on May 20, 2008.

A labor dispute had threatened the postponement or cancellation of the game during the spring and summer of 2011; league officials had set contingency plans to postpone the game one week if it had been necessary to postpone regular season games into the second week of January. The contingency plans were not implemented, since the labor dispute was resolved in late July.

Commercials
Activist Randall Terry has said he is planning to run an ad featuring graphic photos of aborted fetuses during Super Bowl XLVI. It is unlikely that Terry will be allowed to air the ad, given that the networks have a policy under equal time rules to reject all political and issue related advertising during the Super Bowl.

An advertisement from Pepsi will feature the winner of season one of the Fox series The X Factor as the star of the commercial.

Entertainment
Madonna has been slated as the performer for the Super Bowl halftime show, with M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj possibly performing as well; all three are performing on Madonna's upcoming single, "Give Me All Your Love," which will be performed as part of the show. Other collaborators on the project include longtime Madonna collaborator Jamie King, Moment Factory and Cirque du Soleil; the league confirmed Madonna as the headliner for the Super Bowl halftime show on December 4, 2011. Additionally, the Indiana University Marching Hundred will be performing during the pregame show.