The Big Ten Football Championship Game returns to Lucas Oil Stadium for the 16th time on Saturday, 5 December 2026. Kickoff is 8 p.m. ET on FOX. The conference's own championship notice dates the game and the kickoff.
The venue page carries four clocks for the day. The South Parking Lot opens at 8 a.m. for ADA parking. The ticket office opens at 4 p.m. The gates open at 6 p.m. The kickoff is at 8 p.m. Every entrant needs a ticket regardless of age. The clear bag policy applies. The stadium is cashless.
Fifteen Editions, One Address
The conference publishes the game's history table. It carries 15 dated editions from 2011 to 2025, and every location line reads Lucas Oil Stadium. The run opened with Wisconsin 42, Michigan State 39 on 4 December 2011 and closed with Indiana 13, Ohio State 10 on 6 December 2025.
The dates move. The earliest edition fell on 1 December, in 2018. The latest fell on 19 December, in 2020. The address holds.
The Fan Fest Runs Two Days
The conference dates Big Ten Fan Fest presented by Dr Pepper at the Indiana Convention Center on Friday 4 December and Saturday 5 December. It gives more than 200,000 square feet to interactive games, entertainment, merchandise, giveaways and food and drink.
The convention centre's own event record dates the same festival 5 to 6 December and carries a forecast attendance of 70,000. Two publishers, one day apart at the close.
The Venue's Own August Sheet
The convention centre's schedule sheet, stamped 3 August 2026, rows the Fan Fest at 12/04/26 to 12/05/26 with a 70,000 forecast. The same sheet rows the Keurig Dr Pepper Pre-Game at 1,000 on 12/05, the championship game at 70,000 on 12/05, and Colts vs New York Giants at 65,000 on 11/29.
The Calendar Around the Game
The stadium's dated feed covers 1 November 2026 to 1 February 2027 and carries eight events. ISSMA State Marching Band Finals on 7 November. Colts vs Dallas Cowboys on 8 November. Bands of America Grand National Championship from 12 November. Colts vs Miami Dolphins on 15 November. Colts vs New York Giants on 29 November. The championship game on 5 December at 20:00. Colts vs Cincinnati Bengals on 26 December. Colts vs Jacksonville Jaguars on 9 January 2027.
Six days separate the Giants game from the title game. Twenty-one days separate the title game from the Bengals game. The title game is the only stadium event inside that 27-day gap.
The Inventory Under the Weekend
The convention centre's footer gives downtown Indianapolis 7,100 hotel rooms, 4,700 of them connected by skywalk. Visit Indy's connected-hotels page gives 12 hotels and 5,200 rooms in the connected package, anchored by the JW Marriott Indianapolis at 1,005 rooms. The same page puts the rooms within walking distance of the centre above 10,000 once the downtown pipeline delivers.
A 70,000 forecast against 7,100 downtown rooms is 985.9 percent of that count. The figure is a forecast. It is not a booking and not a contracted block.
What the Rate Page Prices
Engine's Indianapolis page gives a city average of $128 a night across 1.2 million public rate observations from May 2024 to April 2026. Its monthly table puts November at $122 and December at $112, against $107 in February and $158 in May. The page ranks the market 39th of 50, and 14 percent below the $148 median of that set.
The Engine figures are par rates, the cheapest public price at the moment of each search, taken 10 to 180 days before check-in. The page prints no price for 5 December 2026.
The Term Nobody Publishes
The conference lists 15 prior editions and dates every one of them at Lucas Oil Stadium. No page reached publishes a host agreement term past the current edition.