Meeting and Event Planning Guide: How USA Swimming will put a pool in Lucas Oil Stadium

Next summer, the U.S. Olympic swimming trials will be held in an NFL stadium for the first time. In June, fans will flock to Lucas Oil Stadium to watch the nation’s finest athletes compete for the chance to go for the gold in Paris.

“This will be the biggest swim meet ever staged,” Shana Ferguson, chief commercial officer of USA Swimming, told IBJ. “Nobody’s ever done this before, and that’s pretty exciting.”

The nine-day event will take place June 15-23. However, the work to transform the home of the Indianapolis Colts into a natatorium for elite swimmers will start several weeks earlier. Three pools will be installed on the football field so 30,000 spectators can witness the aquatic spectacle.

“Putting a basketball court in the middle of a football stadium is one thing, but putting three tanks full of water in a football stadium is much more complex,” Ferguson said. “We’ve got the best engineers, the best plumbing experts and electrical engineers and experts in the business figuring all of this out.”

This event will mark 100 years since Indianapolis first hosted the Olympic swimming trials for the 1924 games, also held in Paris.

“We have such a rich swimming history in the state of Indiana,” said Patrick Talty, president of Indiana Sports Corp. “We felt like this was the perfect time to bring all those positive attributes together and make a big event out of it and something special.”

Forming partnerships

The Olympic swimming trials aren’t being held in an indoor swimming complex because “there is no natatorium in the United States that’s large enough to host this meet,” Ferguson said. In fact, the last time the swimming trials were hosted in a natatorium was at the IUPUI Natatorium in Indianapolis in 2000. However, with a maximum capacity of 4,700 spectators, that space was too small to host the growing event the next time. In 2004, the Olympic swimming trials were held in a Long Beach, California, parking lot.

(That same year, Indianapolis hosted the smaller FINA World Championships at Conseco Fieldhouse—now Gainbridge Fieldhouse—but the event required only two 25-meter pools. Two of the three pools for the 2024 Olympic trials must be 50 meters long.)

By 2008, the Olympic swimming trials were moved to the CHI Health Center in Omaha, Nebraska. “For the last four Olympic trials, we were in essentially a basketball/hockey arena that held a maximum of 14,000 people,” Ferguson said. “We outgrew that space and said, ‘Well, what’s the next biggest arena? Let’s go to an NFL football stadium.’”

In March 2022, Colorado Springs, Colorado-based USA Swimming and the Indiana Sports Corp. officially announced Indianapolis would host the 2024 Olympic swimming trials. Talty said the city bid on the epic swim meet because it fit the community well. “Going after the Olympic swimming trials was a partnership between Visit Indy, Lucas Oil Stadium and the Sports Corp.,” he said. “All of us worked together to secure the event. It was something that we had targeted, something that we all talked about.”

Eric Neuburger, director at Lucas Oil Stadium, said the venue’s track record helped secure the swimming trials. “We have long been accustomed to doing out-of-the-ordinary things,” he said.

“We were the first to host the entirety of March Madness in one community with the partnership with the NCAA,” Talty added.

Ferguson said it was clear early on that Indianapolis and Lucas Oil Stadium would be the best fit. “Certainly, the stadium is state-of-the-art in so many ways,” she said. “But what we’ve learned through awarding the bid and working with people to plan this event is that the folks over at Lucas Oil Stadium are just top-notch. They have worked with us at every turn to figure out how in the world we’re going to do this.”

According to Neuburger, the stadium is built for big events that come from all over the world to make the most significant impact. “We have more back-of-house space than any other NFL stadium, and we are accustomed to taking care of sophisticated clients who do their Super Bowl only once a year—in this case, every four years,” he said.

‘Extraordinary undertaking’

Italy-based Myrtha Pools will begin construction at Lucas Oil Stadium in May for the Olympic trials. Two Indianapolis-area companies will also work on the big event: Pendleton-based Dodd Technologies and Roachdale-based Spear Corp. Both businesses were involved with the Omaha swimming trials for several years.

“Myrtha and usually Brian Spear and his company take care of the build, the pools themselves and all the plumbing and water management systems,” said Mark Dodd, president of Dodd Technologies. “After that, all of the decks, all the structure that surrounds the pools, all the build-in, we start off with that part.”

Dodd’s crew will also work on lighting, sound and scoreboards.

In Omaha, Dodd’s team built 30,000 square feet of total surface for the warmup and competition pools. In Indianapolis, his crews will construct about 55,000 square feet. “It’s a substantial upgrade in the build for that facility,” Dodd said. “Things you can do in hours in a smaller venue translate to days in this venue.”

Brian Spear, president of Spear Corp., said putting temporary pools in a venue that isn’t designed for that purpose within a specific time frame poses unique challenges and requires precise planning. It’s an extraordinary undertaking, and his team has the experience and knowledge to pull it off successfully, he said.

The 10-lane competition pool and one of the warmup pools will each be 50 meters long, while the other warmup pool will be 25 meters long. A drape will separate the warmup area from the competition arena, which will seat about 30,000 people. Construction will start on the warmup pools first so crews can simultaneously work on the rigging for video screens above the competition pool before it’s built.

“When it’s done and installed, the way it will go on TV, the way NBC will shoot this thing—you’ll forget you’re in a football stadium,” Dodd said. “It will just be a huge swimming venue.”

Once construction is complete, the process of filling the pools begins.

“We’re working with our partners at Citizens Energy and the Indianapolis Fire Department to get that massive amount of water approaching 2 million gallons into the pools that will be there for over a month,” Neuburger said. “At the conclusion, we will pump the water out and make sure it’s suitable for stormwater release.”

The event’s teardown will happen much faster than the buildup. Ferguson said that, as soon as the last race is over, crews will start draining the pools and leave the venue within days.

“Lucas Oil Stadium is a busy building, so we can’t just slowly drain it,” Talty added. “We’ve got to move out quickly because there’s always something happening.”

To leave no room for error, organizers will do a test event one week before the swimming trials begin. “We have to be really meticulous,” Ferguson said. “We can’t have any mistakes with the length of the pool, the depth of the pool, the chemical makeup of the water, the air quality, the temperature.”

Engineers will also assess water flow and filtration to prevent a current that could aid athletes.

“Then we’ll make some adjustments after that test event, and we’ll be ready to rock and roll on June 15,” Ferguson said.

‘Big ambitions’

It’s not just Lucas Oil Stadium getting in on the swimming action.

An interactive fan experience called the Toyota Aqua Zone will be set up inside the Indiana Convention Center. Fans will also find entertainment and hospitality on Georgia Street.

“Indianapolis is a fantastic sports city. It has a great volunteer base here, so everybody’s happy to jump in and help,” Dodd said.

Talty declined to estimate the price tag for hosting the event but said he expects the cost to be recouped in ticket and sponsorship sales. “It’s an expensive endeavor, but we believe in it. We believe that we’re giving access to people who’ve never been able to see trials before,” he said.

He also said a “somewhat conservative” projection of the event’s economic impact is “in excess of $100 million.”

And the swimming trials will provide prime-time coverage from Lucas Oil Stadium for nine straight nights, he said.

“We’re showing Indy is the best place to live, work, play and visit to millions of people watching,” he said. “It’s going to be great to see Indianapolis every time we come in and out of commercial break. It’s going to be great to see that skyline.”

Neuburger said hosting the Olympic swimming trials will show how conducive the city is to holding large events.

“How our community has the capacity from a hotel standpoint, walkability, restaurants, entertainment [and] connectivity to the convention center [that] makes it really special,” he said. “We’re in a community that has big ambitions, and this helps to demonstrate that.”

Organizers hope to keep the swimming trials in Indianapolis long term, but for now, they’re focused on the task at hand. Neuburger said they plan to execute the event in a way that makes Indianapolis the “team to beat in 2028.”•

Editor’s note: Due to an editing error, this story incorrectly stated how many times Indianapolis has hosted the swim trials. Indianapolis also hosted them in 1996 and 2000. The city hosted the Olympic diving trials in 1984, 1988, 1992 and 2008.