Indiana seizes on opportunities with women’s sports

More than five months after the Indiana Fever drafted Caitlin Clark at No. 1 overall in the WNBA draft, local sports and tourism leaders are eager to further grow the state’s role in women’s sports.

Several efforts are already underway to capitalize on the rising interest, including plans for two sports teams that will begin play early next year—one a professional volleyball franchise and the other a semiprofessional tackle football team. Meanwhile, the Indiana Sports Corp. has made women’s sports a key priority in its vision for the next 25 years, with a goal to draw teams and events that could bring more visitors, business leaders and development opportunities.

Already, Indianapolis is set to host the 2025 WNBA All-Star Weekend and the 2028 NCAA Division I Women’s Final Four, which will mark the fourth time the college event has taken place here.

And this week, details emerged about a new effort called the Marvella Project that will be led by outgoing Fever President Allison Barber. The project, set to receive $4 million in state support, will involve the construction of a facility between Lafayette and Chicago focused on celebrating women’s sports and creating new athletic opportunities for young women.

The new ventures come as the WNBA rides a wave of heightened interest in its own product, in part thanks to the addition of Clark to the league. The rookie has helped spark never-before-seen ticket and merchandise sales for the Fever and record-breaking viewership for the league, all while setting records of her own and helping the Fever reach the playoffs for the first time since 2016.

Harnessing the movement

Sarah Myer, chief of staff for the Indiana Sports Corp., said while interest in Clark and the Fever is beneficial for tourism and spending in downtown Indianapolis, the biggest impact could be its potential to bolster investments in women’s sports across the state.

Indianapolis could follow the lead of cities like Kansas City and Los Angeles, where celebrities and well-known female figures are investing in sports, she said, but the state of Indiana can also set itself apart by trying to become a capital for women’s sporting events.

“This is the time for us to rally together to make sure that this isn’t just a moment for women’s sports, but a movement,” Myer said. “We’ve seen some of these things happen, and then it kind of fades a little bit. But what’s really important to sustaining this is not only making sure that the women on the court are given the attention that they deserve but also that they have people behind the scenes, women in leadership positions, pushing and advocating for them and advocating for this movement to continue.”

While the Indiana Sports Corp. has no concrete plan yet on how to incorporate the women’s sports effort into the region’s tourism industry, the organization is working closely with local leaders and groups like Pacers Sports & Entertainment, the new Indy Ignite volleyball team and local youth programs to find new avenues for growth in women’s sports.

Myers said the city could use events like the WNBA All-Star Game and the Women’s Final Four as springboards to draw investors and fans to the city. Likewise, she said, plans for the new women’s sports franchises could go a long way toward garnering the attention of event rights-holders for women’s sports.

Mel Raines, CEO of Pacers Sports & Entertainment, said the Indiana Sports Corp.’s interest in women’s sports presents an opportunity for Indianapolis to “be a global leader” in that area and further define Indianapolis as a top host city.

“There is no doubt that we are in the middle of a real pivot point as it pertains to women’s athletics, and the fact that Indiana gets to be the backdrop for it is really amazing,” she told IBJ in an emailed response to questions.

“The Fever are attracting new fans to the game, people from around the world who just love great basketball and appreciate the talented young players on this roster that we have added over several drafts. And while this push to advance women’s sports is not new here in Indy, this moment gives us a real opportunity to have that conversation in a more robust and meaningful way than ever before.”

Indy digs volleyball

In January, Fishers will join eight other cities as a home to a team competing in the Pro Volleyball Federation, an upstart professional league that its leaders hope will be a natural progression for top collegiate and overseas players hoping to continue their careers.

The Indy Ignite will play home games at Fishers Event Center starting in January, with a roster that includes former national champions, All-Americans, and conference and NCAA record holders. The team is owned by Indianapolis-based GRE Capital principal Jim Schumacher and Don Hutchinson, managing director of Goelzer Investment Management.

Mary Kay Huse, a former tech executive and entrepreneur, is president and general manager of the Ignite. She said the team hopes to build on a consistent interest in the sport seen across the United States in recent years, including locally with multiple large youth volleyball tournaments held in Indianapolis annually.

“As we think about how we build our base, we have such a strong volleyball community—between high school players, club players and college players—that we can build on,” Huse said. “But we also have this adjacent sports community [in basketball fans] that, if we can educate them about the play, we feel really confident that once they get in our venue and they have the fan experience that we want to create … they’ll become fans of the Ignite. We’ve got a lot of good ingredients for success doing volleyball here in Indiana.”

According to an annual survey conducted by the Indianapolis-based National Federation of State High School Associations, also known as NFHS, volleyball is the second-most-popular sport among high school girls in the country, with nearly 480,000 participants during the 2023-2024 school year. Nearly 10,000 girls play on high-school volleyball teams in Indiana every year, not including those who participate in alternative leagues like clubs, travel teams or recreation leagues.

The Pro Volleyball Federation is still trying to finesse some of the finer details of the league’s operations. But Huse said she’s confident about the group’s staying power, with franchises established in Atlanta; Columbus, Ohio; Las Vegas; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Omaha, Nebraska; Orlando; and San Diego. Players are paid on exclusive one- or two-year contracts—meaning they can’t play overseas—with players making from $60,000 to $175,000 per year, plus optional medical coverage, according to the league.

From flag to tackle

In another women’s sports effort, a women’s tackle football team is expected to make its debut next spring, albeit in a semiprofessional format. Kristian Aleixo is founder and majority owner of the city’s Women’s Football Alliance team, which plans to hold tryouts in October.

Aleixo said the 35-member team is meant to be part of a growing pathway for women in the sport, particularly with the continued growth of flag football among girls ages 6 to 17. In 2023, about 500,000 girls participated in flag programs, a 63% increase since 2019, according to NFHS. At least 16 high schools in the Indianapolis area have flag football teams that are part of the NFL Flag program.

The effort also comes as flag football is set to be introduced as an Olympic sport during the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.

“This is the first time in history where little girls could literally say, ‘I’ve been playing this game my whole life,’” Aleixo said. “The gates are up, and I’m excited to go out here and see if we can find that Caitlin Clark, that [Fevers legend] Tamika Catchings [for football] … because we’re creating new heroes. We’re building new heroes for little girls to be able to point at and say, ‘Man, I could be her.’”

The Women’s Football Alliance consists of three leagues that are based on a European-soccer-style promotion and relegation system—the top team in lower divisions advances, while a bottom team that has back-to-back losing seasons is demoted to a lower division. Currently, the league doesn’t pay its players through contracts. Aleixo said most women have full-time jobs and play on the side, with opportunities for name, image and likeness deals with either team or individual sponsors. He said his franchise hopes to start paying players a stipend beginning with the 2026 season.

Moving forward

Indianapolis is also home to a pre-professional Indy Eleven women’s team that has had on-field success since its launch three years ago. It captured the 2023 USL W League championship.

And Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett has said as part of his bid to bring a Major League Soccer club to Indianapolis, he is open to adding a franchise for the National Women’s Soccer League—the top-tier professional soccer league in the United States.

“There have been conversations about it, but certainly no decisions have been made,” he said in July. “I think in all fairness, there is a compelling reason why Indianapolis would be well-served by both a professional MLS men’s team and a professional women’s league team.”

But he said those are decisions that would be made by a group of investors who are said to be pursuing an MLS team for Indianapolis—a group that has yet to be made public. “I’d certainly encourage that both men and women be well represented in soccer,” Hogsett said in July.

Likewise, leaders of the Marvella Project—named in honor of Birch Bayh’s late wife who inspired the creation of Title IX, a federal law that bolstered funding for women’s sports—are hopeful their endeavor will make big waves for the growth of women’s sports.

Marvella is planning a $98 million sports campus at Fair Oaks Farms in Newton County and is expected to offer athletic facilities, leadership academies, a museum, and a health and wellness center focused on helping build and maintain interest among girls and young women in sports.

The first phase of the development is expected to open in spring 2026 and counts Barber, Catchings and former ESPN anchor Suzy Kolber among its executive leadership. The project was founded by brothers Glenn and Lou Tilley.

Indiana Sports Corp.’s Myer said she is excited for what might come of the shifting landscape for women’s sports in the state and noted the organization hopes to take a hands-on role in the conversation.

That could include opportunities tied to WNBA All-Star Weekend or the Final Four, as well as other major events, like the Big Ten Women’s Basketball Tournament that returns to Indianapolis next year.

In addition to previous NCAA Final Fours, Indianapolis hosted the 2024 Women’s Basketball Invitational Tournament championship as well as the annual Horizon League women’s basketball tournament semifinals and championship game, all events in which the Indiana Sports Corp. played a role and sought to create new experiences for participants, fans, executives and sponsors, she said.

“Let’s not just talk, let’s go buy tickets,” Myers said. “It’s about continuing to focus on bringing events here that do focus on women’s sports … and then supporting women in leadership roles for these organizations and making sure they have a seat at the table, because we feel like what we’ve been able to do here with women leadership proves there’s a lot more that we could do in the future.”•