Indians get attention from ESPN
It just keeps getting better for the Indianapolis Indians this season. With attendance already on its way to eclipsing last season’s total of 586,785, the Tribe is getting a boost from two special…
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Colts creativity rings cash register
The Indianapolis Colts sell sponsorships like Peyton Manning throws touchdown passes. A lot of the credit goes to the team’s former sales and marketing boss Ray Compton, who sold everything imaginable…
IUPUI faces tough decisions over aging sports facilities
From 1979 to 1982, IUPUI inherited three world-class athletic facilities that have since hosted Olympic trials and world-record performances by top-flight amateur and professional athletes. But that inheritance has turned into a financial albatross around the university’s neck. It’s grappling with how to pay for their upkeep and the improvements necessary to keep the facilities–and the city–in the hunt for high-profile sporting events.
SPORTS: Our new playground is much more than a stadium
Now, I feel like the unlucky one. For the past two years, I’ve been privileged to be part of monthly media tours of Lucas Oil Stadium. I was there as the concrete bowl began to take shape, and as those steel trusses that would frame the retractable roof were put into place. I was there as the brick exterior began to climb, and when the concourses were little more than freshly poured concrete and empty spaces. I was there when…
Lucas says please don’t call stadium ‘The Luke’
Officials for Lucas Oil Products Inc. are imploring fans and media not to refer to the team’s new stadium as The Luke,
a nickname that has cropped up on sports talk radio shows and been repeated in print and on TV. The nickname
seems to be gaining momentum, and that doesn’t sit well with Lucas brass already playing defense against
New Jersey-based Lukoil Co. California based-Lucas Oil signed a 20-year, $121.5 million naming-rights deal
for the Colts’ new stadium.
WNDE holds off sports-talk upstart in ratings despite marketing push, high-profile co-host
Longtime sports/talk station WNDE-AM 1260 has beaten back newcomer WFNI-AM 1070 in a critical listener demographic despite
WFNI’s extensive promotion of hosts Eddie White and Indianapolis Star sports columnist Bob Kravitz.
SPORTS: Our new playground is much more than a stadium
Now, I feel like the unlucky one. For the past two years, I’ve been privileged to be part of monthly media tours of Lucas Oil Stadium. I was there as the concrete bowl began to take shape, and as those steel trusses that would frame the retractable roof were put into place. I was there as the brick exterior began to climb, and when the concourses were little more than freshly poured concrete and empty spaces. I was there when…
Local firm boosts USA Gymnastics
Local marketing firm Three-Sixty Group created an unprecedented ad campaign for USA Gymnastics, aimed at capitalizing on this month’s Olympics. The campaign debuts today with an eight-page insert in USA Today. USA Gymnastics…
Theismann calls LOS NFL’s finest
Joe Theismann has been inside every single National Football League stadium. The former quarterback and TV announcer said yesterday that the new Lucas Oil Stadium is a one-of-a-kind.
“I’m not saying it’s one of the best…
George named motorcyclist of year
Indianapolis Motor Speedway CEO Tony George has been named 2008 “Motorcyclist of the Year” by Motorcyclist, one of the most widely circulated motorcycle magazines in the U.S., for his efforts to bring the…
SPORTS: Games are-or should be-all about the athletes
At the same time, those same athletes, thrust into the spotlight, will find their failures magnified along with their successes. Media who normally shun gymnastics, or aquatic sports, or track and field, or cycling, or rowing, or even Taekwondo, will suddenly become instant experts, lifting up the victors and damning the vanquished. How well I know. It was my good fortune to cover three Olympics for the local daily: Seoul in 1988, Barcelona in 1992, and Atlanta in 1996. The…
Stadium’s flexibility should help attract extra events: But some experts say stadiums are still a hard sell
Lucas Oil Stadium can be a jack of all trades. Hang rigging from its ceiling, lower built-in sound-absorbing curtains over most of the seats, and it can host a fairly intimate 20,000-seat concert. Roll out the temporary floor to cover the turf, part and pack away one side of the bleachers, and it can stretch to be a convention hall, boasting 183,000 square feet of contiguous exhibition space plus 12 meeting rooms, a welcome plaza and party deck. But the…
$720 million stadium will open with big operating deficit
Cleaning crews are wiping construction dust from the 63,000 seats in Lucas Oil Stadium, prepping for the public’s first peek at the $720 million venue Aug. 16. But the hard work is only beginning for the city’s Capital Improvement Board, the entity charged with operating the stadium. The fumbling point: CIB is anticipating a $20 million operating deficit for Lucas Oil Stadium in 2009.
Stadium scores Colts 30-percent sponsorship increase: Entertainment in 14 themed areas starts four hours before kick-off; strategy gains notice from other NFL teams
The Indianapolis Colts will score almost $18 million annually through their new stadium’s title sponsorship and deals with 14 founding sponsors, each of which has its own themed area of the stadium’s interior. Including sponsor agreements for two massive video boards at each end of the stadium, a narrower video board circling the upper reaches of the lower bowl, and other in-stadium deals, the Colts should bring in $20 million, 30 percent more than in the RCA Dome, according to…
New stadium’s food vendor for sale
The company city officials hired to handle general concession sales and premium dining at Lucas Oil Stadium could be sold before serving its first hot dog at the 63,000-seat venue set to open…
Favre’s return spurs Colts question
Brett Favre is returning to Green Bay today to play for the Packers. This after Packers brass offered to pay him $20 million to stay away.
This got me thinking. Which of the Indianapolis Colts that has retired or otherwise left …
SPORTS: NASCAR ill-prepared to race on hallowed ground
It would be piling on if I were to join the chorus of displeasure and disapproval following the 15th running … and stopping … and running … and stopping … and running … and stopping … and running of the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard. Aw, the heck with that. Clear the way while I pile on. For the second time in three years, the good folks at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway-without throwing a punch-received a black eye from a…
Racquet Club Pro Shop continues record growth: Team sales pushing specialty retailer’s expansion
In the midst of a down economy and tepid interest in tennis, the only problem the Indianapolis Racquet Club Pro Shop has is where to expand next. Pushed by double-digit-percentage sales growth in nine of the last 12 years, the IRC Pro Shop has expanded from a 750-square-foot shoebox to become an industry giant in the specialty tennis category. Most tennis club pro shops are breakeven operations, but IRC officials said they have seen profit grow each of the last…
Hotels feeling travel slump: City occupany rates fall, but downtown operators performing well this year thanks to convention biz
Staggeringly high gasoline prices and a sputtering economy are preventing scores of would-be travelers from packing up their thirsty sport-utility vehicles and heading to their favorite vacation destinations. Nationwide, hotel occupancy rates slipped to 68 percent through June of this year, down from 71 percent the same time last year, according to the most recent data from Tennessee-based Smith Travel Research. For the most part, local hotel operators are feeling the same pain. Through the first six months of the…
IU names Crean to AD search team
Indiana University President Michael McRobbie announced this afternoon that the school has formed a 13-person search committee to find a replacement for athletic director Rick Greenspan. The search committee will include faculty members, administrators and alumni. The search committee will be…