Indiana Sports Corp leaders check out NCAA football championship
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Indiana Sport Corp leaders, including President Ryan Vaughn, were in Dallas Monday for the NCAA football championship game.
“Really, it’s a fact-finding mission. We look at a lot of events throughout the year, throughout the last couple years. Some of those we bid on and some of those we haven’t,” Sport Corp’s John Dedman said.
The first opportunity to snag the football championship would be 2018. Phoenix, Arizona and Tampa, Florida have already claimed 2016 and 2017 NCAA football championships respectively.
“It’s a marquee event and we’re used to hosting marquee events here in Indianapolis. We think we do them pretty well,” Dedman said.
But it’s unclear how much fans will catch on to the new four-team playoff format. Each year, semi-final games will be played in two different cities and then the big face-off 11 days later elsewhere.
“You definitely have to see the event to be able to analyze it to see if it’s a good fit for our community,” Dedman said.
Indianapolis and Indiana Sports Corp did lose out on a Super Bowl bid earlier this year for 2018, so perhaps the NCAA football championship could fill the gap for that year.
Dedman tells 24-Hour News 8, Sports Corp leaders plan to talk about their experience in Dallas later this week.
Ohio State and Oregon will face-off in the NCAA football championship Monday at 8:30 p.m. on ESPN.