missed the names of the citizen advisory folk..

Every real study shows the Super Bowl doesn’t do that much. San Diego’s last fling brought in about $100 million, and that counts Hotels, the biggest portion of the money by far.

Expect a new Price Waterhouse study any day that ocunts every dollar spent as a dollar accruing to the city government.

It’s a scam, but Hoosiers eat it up.

First of all the publicity that will come from having the superbowl here is unprecedented. It should be a top prioity.

And abdul- you have NO evidence that there was no community support behind last year’s bid. Everyone I talked to thought it would be awesome! What is your evidence? Blogs?

I’d say raising $25 million in two months pretty damn good community support.

And by the way, Ballard is using the same team Bart put together.

It’s great feedback and you should notice quite a difference in community involvement this year. Mark has solicited assistance from quite a few in the community (I’m assisting as well) to really get the word out AND to provide feedback to make this the greatest event ever.

As for Jay’s note, this is the naysaying and misinformation that continues to be spread on events like the Super Bowl. It’s simply NOT true that it’s a scam. At minimum, the world is introduced to your city for one of the largest events in American sports – that alone provides millions of dollars in PR and marketing.

One thing that Jay notes is ‘city’ government. The economic windfall affects much more than the ‘city’. It’s always the case – folks who don’t like football just scream and yell… but this is much bigger than football. This is presenting our fine city to the world and showing them that not only can we handle such an event, we’re ready for much, much more.

You don’t get ahead by naysaying.

As long as the majority of the cash is from the private sector, go ahead and shoot for the moon. If we do get it the impact will still not be as big as a southern city. Many of the big corporations will move their party’s to Los Vegas instead of Indy due to the weather. Heck I will help out if you can guarantee me a ticket to the Maxim party. ;)

They want public input/support now??
Wonder why they didn’t want to put the issue before the taxpayers BEFORE they rammed this down our throats?
Sadly, Morgan County alone had the ‘nads to vote down the Colt’s Playground Tax.

Mark Miles is simply re-submitting the last bid. He is asking the same businesses that committed last time. He is just trying to get as much time on tv that he can. He wants to share his big hairdo with everyone.

You don’t get something for nothing. Is the political capital spent on Bob Grand and the Super Bowl worth the trade-off to voters? An “ethical screen” that takes nearly half a page of newspaper and putting public money into a high profile event event that benefits relatively few aren’t “no-brainers”. My perception of Ballard was safety, reduced spending, and less big machine politics. I hope these events are worth the trade-off and my perception was correct.

Let’s look at this from the perspective of the average middle income family in Indianapolis.
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Property taxes have increased, cost of living has increased, wages have flat-lined, and home equity is vanishing.
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Now throw in a Superbowl. Will it bring in more attention than the Indy 500 – the highest attendance draw of any sport on earth and televised globally – brings in on an annual basis? Will that brief attention bring more money into family pockets? Will it reduce the cost of gas and a combo meal at McDonalds?
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I highly doubt it.
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The biggest winner in a Superbowl city is the tax collector. Local merchants see a one week mega-surge and they walk to the bank, grinning ear to ear. That’s great, I love to see business thrive. But in the long run, the city residents themselves don’t benefit anything but a few days in the spotlight and a few memories of the big event.
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If I had to get really honest, my biggest gripe with an Indy Superbowl revolves around the stadium deal and the blackmail tactics used to get the stadium funded and built. Illogical or not, something at my core rejects the notion of government participation in the influence of private business – especially when said government stands to reap the tax benefits and the profit benefits are concentrated in the hands of a few.
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I don’t call that representation. Call me jaded, but I lump the Indy Superbowl bid into the same category.

Doug, you couldn’t be more wrong. There no evidence that any Superbowl has had any lasting impact on any city anywhere. The City of Jacksonville spent 12 million dollars on the Superbowl, well above their 3 million dollar estimate. No one factors in the costs of hosting events when they go on and on about economic impact. Some of the fixed costs need to be amortized for each event and the operational costs should be deducted also. Then real numbers based on real data should be collected from superbowl attendees. It should not be that hard to figure out who is spending what by having every downtown hotel restaurant, etc. track zip codes of purhcasers and then do the same for several random winter days and compare the total economic activity. I’ll bet that the differences will be signicantly smaller than you would ever expect.

IDI are someone should really work to get real numbers that can be evaluated and critiqued once for all.

How much impact has the fact that the Colts won the Superbowl last year had on our economy?

Hey, I want to move my business to Indy, because that city is all about winning. Dream on.

A Super Bowl in Indy is a swell idea if the tourists from near and far want to freeze here in February.

Well, I’d much rather freeze than drown.