Weekly Buzz: Super Bowl in Indianapolis
January 31, 2012, By Jack Heffron 0 comments
Back when I was a kid, we called it India-no-place. It was the heart and hub of Indiana, sure, but there weren't a whole lot of cool places in the Hoosier State to compete with it. If you took a family trip there, you could see the state capital, take a spin around Monument Circle, maybe take in a minor league baseball game and that was about it.
But Indianapolis has come a long, long way since then. Some people in other parts of the country have scoffed at holding an event as large and important as the Super Bowl in such an un-tropical and unlikely city, but the choice really isn't unlikely at all. In the past couple of decades Indianapolis has positioned itself as a master concierge of large sporting events. Guests leave raving about this hidden gem.
The city has hosted the Indy 500 for a hundred years, and the race draws hundreds of thousands of fans and members of the media, so my guess is that Indy isn't shaking in its boots at the prospect of Super Bowl hoards arriving this week. Indianapolis also is the NCAA's HQ. It hosted the Final Four men's basketball games in 2010 and regularly hosts regional games in the tournaments for both men and women. USA Gymnastics, USA Diving and USA Track & Field also call Indy home. And so, rather than an unlikely choice, if you're putting together a large national sporting event, the capital of the Hoosier State should always make the short list. They know what they're doing at least as well as any city in America.
The Super Bowl, of course, does include more than the game itself, which will be played at Lucas Oil Field on Sunday, February 5. A party breaks out the week before and runs pretty much until the kickoff. Touristy entertainment towns like Miami and New Orleans might seem better venues for all-day/all-night celebrating, but Indy is no slouch in this department either.
