In a fortuitous turn of events for the city of Indianapolis, they beat out Arizona and will host the 2012 Super Bowl at LucasOil Stadium. I was going to let Boilerdowd post about this but he's been traveling and is sleepy.There's been some mini-debate here in the comments of the Ashley Force post about whether this is good for the city or not. And there's considerable debate around the Intertubes about this as well.
So dear readers, weigh in please. Is this good for Indy? Is it bad for Indy? Is it good for fans attending the Super Bowl? Will the Colts have a legit shot at being the first host city team to make the Super Bowl with Peyton approaching 36 years of age?
I tend to think Indy is a nice city but not particularly well-suited to host a Super Bowl in February. Kind of brutal in the midwest in February.
11 comments:
It's great for the city. The new money flowing in from all the tourists will more than pay for the new stadium. It will also boost the national reputation of Indy.
Tourist money from 1 event will not pay for that stadium.
It is a good thing for Indy, but I agree with J, a February event is a little rough. I'm thinking that all the people coming in for the SB will cut it as tight as possible and not hang around.
At least the new airport terminal will be done by then.
It will only be good if the response is good from the weekend. I mean, did people go crazy about how awesome Houston was after they hosted it? Nope. And that is a warm place. It will be cold, even with global warming. Indy isn't exactly a hotspot for tourists now anyways. So I don't know how that will change. I'm assuming at least the hotel situation will be okay since they can handle the 500 crowd.
It'll work very well because Indy has a great setup for people to hang out and enjoy the city prior to, during, and after the Superbowl. Unlike Jacksonville where everything is a 20 minute cab-ride away and tremendously spread out, or Houston where the public transportation is something of a nightmare... everything is centrally located in Indy. The hotels, the night spots, the stadium, etc, it's all right there. If you wanted to stay outside of the immediate area, there's plenty opportunity for that as well, it's really built to cater to this type of an event.
I see no reason why this won't go over very well, Indianapolis has always been a tremendous host for the NCAA events, and you can't argue with it's ability to accommodate the largest single day sporting event in the world: the 500 (can't possibly wait for Sunday by the way).
Will it be cold? Yes. Does that matter? No.
This gets one thinking about how they should start having one or two bowl games somewhere like this, you know besides the PAC 10 or SEC's home turf... but that's another thread isn't it??
Can't be any worse than two years ago when it rained for most of the game...
And true, most everything is downtown and close to the venue.
what i don't understand is how detroit, minneapolis, and especially indy (not to mention potentially KC) get to host super bowls but st. louis got shut out in the late '90s when we had a new domed stadium, rabid fan base, etc. i think tagliabue had it in for us but maybe that's just me.
Guess I should weigh in on this debate since I somewhat started it.
I'm not sure how it will boost the national reputation of the city. Nap is pretty known for being a sports city, so yes it is capable of hosting a sporting event. Don't think it will ever be labeled as a city that people visit just to visit, unlike other cities, but that's not the case here. It helps that the stadium is downtown and such and we'll see how things develop in the next four years with the new convention center and hotels and such. But if there are some tourists that are staying up on the Northside near castleton/carmel/fishers area, it's gonna be the same situation as if you're in Jacksonville. 465/69 is a gridlock and that will take about 30 minutes to get to anything (at the least and so on. As much as I think that the new sales tax could be used for other things (security, mass transit, road maintenance, etc.) I'm gonna trust that the city knows what they are doing, and maybe those things will also come along with preparing for the super bowl. Like I said, I was wrong for thinking it was a "pipedream" for my hometown to get the big game, but I'm still happy and curious to see how it will turn out.
H. Jones
Purdue grad '07
Yeah it won't even come NEAR paying for the stadium, but never the less I think Indy is a great city to host it.
It's a nice city, easy to get around, etc. and I'm sure it will help grow the city's reputation.
Kissel,
The reason St. Louis got shut out from the Super Bowl is three-fold. First, The Jones dome sucks. You couldn't have built a more nondescript stadium for an NFL franchise. Second, Georgia Frontierre was a freaking harpie. I doubt Tagliabue ever wanted to do her any favors, especially when she moved a franchise aaway from LA and put it in St. Louis. Third, the city can't handle all the people. Trying to get out of downtown after the bars close is hard enough. Now add a million people traveling to the city for the game, and you've got a clusterfuck of the highest order. Not to mention St. Louis is the most dangerous city in the country, and unlike in Detroit where you are across the river from beautiful Windsor, if you cross the Mississippi, you end up in East St. Louis. Thanks but no thanks
The issue I have with Indianapolis is that it's such a small downtown area. By comparison, Minneapolis and Detroit are massive, and there is a lot to do within blocks of their respective stadia, like catch a show, go out to eat, or in Detroit's case, get shot 17 times. Indy has hosted massive sporting events, like the Indy 500 (even if we don't care stateside, it's still something of a big deal internationally), Brickyard, and the Final Four. I have no doubt they can handle the capacity, but there's not a whole lot to do for several million people when they get there.
there may be a lot to do in terms of bars and such, but detroit's still kind of a dump around ford field - the "get shot" reference was perfect. also, don't forget that they had a super bowl at the freaking silverdome, which isn't even in detroit - it's in pontiac. you mean to tell me that the silverdome and metrodome (or jacksonville or the georgia dome for that matter) were more appetizing than the dome in st. louis in its early years? i'm not talking about now, because the ed has gotten kind of crappy, but puhlease. as far as getting in and out of downtown stl, yeah, it would suck, but no worse than anywhere else after a big event.
that said, this new stadium in indy looks pretty awesome. i imagine it'll showcase rather well.
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