Over the years the city of Indianapolis has established itself as one of the most respected host cities for any number of big-ticket events on the sports calendar. The Super Bowl has been there. The NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament has been there as recently as last month. The Big Ten has set-up shop for its football championship game and basketball tournaments. Media members love Indianapolis too (and we all know how picky some of them can be). Indianapolis is a great city for college sports, which is why the NCAA has its headquarters in the neighborhood. In spite of all of that, the city of Indianapolis is not going to dip its toes in the bidding process for College Football Playoff just yet.
On Friday, Indiana Sports Corp announced and confirmed the city of Indianapolis will not be in the bidding for a College Football Playoff national championship game for the upcoming vacancies from 2018 through 2020. Apparently a lack of interest was the main culprit.
“Nobody really expressed a strong, overwhelming desire to go after it in this particular bid cycle,” Sports Corp president Ryan Vaughn said, per the Indy Star. Vaughn went on to suggest the College Football Playoff is still a new venture that needs to be properly evaluated over time before jumping in on a potential bid in the future.
“With a new event, you want to see it grow,” Vaughn said. “You want to see what it looks like year after year after year. What happens in Dallas isn’t necessarily the way we would do things. ... We’d like to see it in a couple different settings to understand the event a little bit better. We do think it was a great event, by the way, and we’re certainly interested in being part of the discussion in future years.”
Indianapolis joins Pasadena, California, Orlando and New York/New Jersey on the list of candidates to host a future championship game, at least for the upcoming bidding cycle. Indianapolis has the facilities to handles such an event, which is one concern the Rose Bowl organizers are a little more challenged by. Orlando is still working to improve facilities before being able to make a serious bid.
For now, the only cities ready to bid for a championship game in 2018, 2019 or 2020 are Atlanta, Jacksonville, Miami, Minneapolis, San Antonio and Santa Clara, California. From that group, Atlanta should be considered a lock to secure one of the championship games. Miami also feels like a safe bet.