Super Dilemma XLV
As the city of Indianapolis puts together its materials to bid on Super Bowl XLV (45), there is one big hurdle the city will have to overcome, where the teams will practice. I ran into Mayor Bart Peterson tonight and he confirmed something I had thought for the past couple days.
Hotel space, tax incentives, places to party are relatively easy to come by. The big challenge will be finding a place for the teams to practice before the Super Bowl. You can forget about Lucas Stadium. The way I understand it, no team gets to practice on the actual field. There is the Colts facility on 56th Street, but it may not be up to par for what the two teams will need.
So the real challenge for the city will be where to get people to play. As it will be the middle of winter in the Midwest, any outside facility is out of the question. In addition there is no University infield to play on. IU and Purdue are too far away to send a football team to practice. So with all the challenges the city faces to get a Super Bowl, the biggest appears to be something a simple as finding a place for folks to practice for a few days.
January 31st, 2007 at 11:49 pm
I believe a local high school or two has an indoor football field. I’m serious. If anyone from the NFL complains they should introduced to the fact a practice field is a practice field. It it’s long enough and wide enough, then it’s good enough for them!
At worse is a comfy bus ride for an hour to West Lafayette really that big a hurdle?
February 1st, 2007 at 5:54 am
Did the Mayor have a price tag for this one-time event. How much is it going to cost the taxpayers? He thinks he has a blank checkbook to spend money on only sporting events. The majority of residents here are not sports fans or has he forgotten.
He seems to be able to raise private funds when he needs to for everything but the $25 Million dollars to help save our youth in this city. To hell with Mayor Peterson, the Colts and the Super Bowl. Just another opportunity for a bunch of rich drug addicts and beer drinking drunks to have a party. What will they do for an encore?
February 1st, 2007 at 10:14 am
Why would the Colts Complex be inadequate? It’s a full-sized indoor football field that serves the Colts perfectly well as a weekday home. Last year, according to a five-minute Google search, the Steelers practiced at the Pontiac Silverdome, the Lions’ former home, which is 31 miles from Ford Field in downtown Detroit. The Seahawks practiced at the Lions’ practice complex in Allen Park, Michigan, which is closer to downtown. By comparison, the IU campus is about 51 miles from downtown Indy and Purdue is about 65 miles from downtown Indy.
It would seem that there are a number of options. One team could use the Colts complex and another could use IU or Purdue. It’s hard to imagine that a police-escorted bus ride to either campus would be much of an imposition. Also, while your commenter is mistaken about Indianapolis-area high schools having indoor football fields, several do have high quality artificial fields. It shouldn’t be too big a deal to cover one of those fields with one of those temporary inflatable teflon “bubbles” that some NFL teams use at their own practice facilities.
Instead of being all cutesy, by talking about what your conversation with the mayor confirmed, why don’t you tell us, in a direct way, what you asked the mayor and what he said in response?
February 1st, 2007 at 10:26 am
Problem solved! Save the RCA Dome. Why spend millions to tear it down? You say we need more convention space? (LOL) That was a subterfuge just to justify building a new stadium. If convention center space was actually needed it could have been built where the Lucas Stadium is located. Truth is we will very likely have to give away convention center space because so many centers have been built around the country. Don’t believe it, go to:
http://www.brookings.edu/metro/pubs/20050117_conventioncenters.pdf
February 1st, 2007 at 11:50 am
John M,
You should listen to my radio show more often. That’s where I went into detail.
Abdul
February 1st, 2007 at 4:39 pm
hamstrung….You have the right Idea. I say you get it to Bart. Good job.
February 3rd, 2007 at 8:20 am
Bart can just go to City Taxpayer Bank and get some money to build a practice field just for the Super Bowl! I’m sure he will. He would sell this city’s soul if that’s what it took to get a Super Bowl.