The Fight to Keep the Big Ten Football Championship in Indianapolis
Source: Icon Sportswire / Getty
INDIANAPOLIS–Having the Big Ten Football Championship Game in Indianapolis through 2028 is one thing. Keeping it here beyond that is a battle that may not be so easy to fight.
Nevertheless, that’s what the Indiana Sports Corps is working hard to do to in an effort to keep the Big Ten title game in Indianapolis indefinitely.
“We’re hopeful that we can keep the Big Ten game here forever—the only place it’s ever been. We don’t want it to go anywhere else,” said Indiana Sports Corps President Patrick Talty in an interview with Inside Indiana Business.
With the addition of Oregon to the Big Ten Conference along with other West Coast universities UCLA, USC and Washington, Talty said the competition to keep Indianapolis the host city was not easy.
“The last round of bidding, we were lucky enough to get all four years that takes us all the way through 2028. We thought we would be lucky if we got two years of those four. It really takes us executing this game at a high level every single year to show the Big 10 why Indianapolis is the best place to host this game,” said Talty.
Cities like Los Angeles and Las Vegas have their eyes on bringing the game to their city. Talty says Las Vegas has some built in advantages.
“They have the ability to build new facilities. They have got all kinds of things that they’ve been building. So we can’t compete with that,” he said. What we have to do is we have to make sure that we compete on the strengths that we have, and our strengths are we have a walkable, connected downtown campus. We can out welcome anybody…and we come together better as a community to execute and host people than any other city.”
In this year’s Big Ten Conference Championship, Oregon defeated Penn State 45-37. Talty said having Oregon fans come to Indianapolis was especially helpful for national exposure.
“To be on prime time in CBS for the first time ever, to have all of those in and out commercial breaks to say you’re live from Indianapolis. I mean, people will hear that. They see it. They’ll see the the skyline shots. They’ll see the activities that happen during the day, and realize Indianapolis is pretty cool,” said Talty.
