The Super Bowl is played at a neutral site to essentially eliminate the potential home-field advantage for either team. This year, Super Bowl 60 will take place at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, the home of the San Francisco 49ers. It will feature the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots, with one team still designated as the home team.
Designated Home Team in Super Bowl 60 Between the Seahawks and Patriots
The NFL’s system for determining a home team for the Super Bowl each year is simple and consistent. In seasons with an odd year, the AFC represents the home team in the big game, while the NFC hosts in even-year seasons. With this year being the year to crown the 2025 NFL champion, the Patriots will serve as the home team, and the Seahawks are listed as the away team.
The goal is to make the final game of any season as fair as possible with predetermined locations and designations for the home team and the stadium site. It was known well before the season kicked off that the AFC champion would be the home team in Super Bowl 60 at Levi’s Stadium.
An interesting twist would have been if the 49ers had advanced to the Super Bowl this year, because they would have been playing the game in their stadium as the away team. They had an opportunity to do so, but they were eliminated by the Seahawks in the Divisional Round.
Just once in NFL history has a team competed in a Super Bowl played in its home stadium, which had been listed as a neutral site prior to the season kicking off. This was when Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeated Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs at Raymond James Stadium for the 2020 season crown. The Buccaneers were the designated home team in their home stadium, the neutral site.
This will not be the case this year, though geographically, Seattle is much closer to Santa Clara than New England is. The Patriots will still be the home team for this odd-numbered season, though the Seahawks play in this stadium every year as a member of the NFC West division.
As the home team, the Patriots get to choose their uniforms, and they will wear white jerseys and pants. The Seahawks will get to call the coin toss as the designated away team.
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Many intriguing storylines surround Super Bowl 60, but all eyes should be on the incredible journeys of both quarterbacks. Sam Darnold and Drake Maye overcame the odds to each finish among the top 13 in PFSN’s QB Impact Metrics.
Darnold did so in his first year with the Seahawks, while Maye was coming off his 4-13 record in his rookie season last year. Now, one of them will walk away from the game as a Super Bowl champion.
