Back In the Spotlight

The Final Four is coming back to Indianapolis!

The NCAA has decided to bring the Men’s Basketball National Championship to Indianapolis for the eighth time in 2021, scheduled for April 3 and 5 at Lucas Oil Stadium. It’s already scheduled to be here next year in 2015.

Our city was on display on the national stage for the Super Bowl a few years ago and has become a favorite spot for big events. Visitors love the city, but these big events are also a great excuse for us locals to make a trip downtown to see what’s been going on.

Downtown is hoppin’! New restaurants, new apartments, new stores (yes- even a grocery store), new homes. If you haven’t been to Fountain Square or Mass Ave or Irvington or the Cultural Trail lately, you’re missing out. We always talk about the growth of the suburbs, especially Hamilton County, but there is some serious development going on downtown.

Downtown businesses love the extra visitors coming for the tournaments for sales reasons, but I love letting people from all over the country – all over the world for the Super Bowl – see what an awesome city we have.

Leading up to the Super Bowl, WFYI aired a documentary called “Naptown to Super Town” about how the city has grown so much over the years thanks to a concentrated effort to use sports as a catalyst. It was fascinating and fun to watch to see how far Indianapolis has come. If you have an hour to spare sometime, it’s definitely worth watching. The video can be found here.

The city does such an amazing job hosting these events, so let’s keep ‘em coming!