I. Built with Purpose

Built with Purpose

Most cities treat sport as entertainment. Indianapolis has treated it as economic infrastructure since the 1970s, and that decision explains the concentration, growth, and leadership pipelines documented in this report.

The foundation is institutional and intentional:

• Indiana Sports Corp, founded in 1979, was the nation's first sports commission, establishing a regional discipline of treating sport as a development engine decades before peer cities followed.
• The Capital Improvement Board, created by the Indiana General Assembly in 1965, owns and operates Lucas Oil Stadium, Gainbridge Fieldhouse, Victory Field, and the Indiana Convention Center, and generated a record $251.6 million in tax and operating revenue in fiscal year 2024.
• Its financing is engineered to protect residents, relying on hospitality taxes that capture out-of-state visitor spending rather than local property tax.
• Standing bid funds, including a statewide sports and tourism fund, make event hosting a continuous recruiting program rather than a series of one-off wins.
• More than $3 billion in recent public and private infrastructure, anchored by North America's most extensive downtown skywalk system connecting more than 37,000 hotel rooms to the city's venues, keeps Indianapolis competitive as a host year after year. (Source: Sports Business Journal, 2026)

This was guided by a published strategy. The Indiana Sports Corp 2050 Vision and its “Team Indy” coalition align hotels, venues, teams, governing bodies, and government behind a single long-term plan.

The clearest evidence that this is a transferable model, and not local luck, is that other governments are now copying the framework, and that Sports Business Journal named Indianapolis the No. 3 Best Sports Business City in the United States in 2026, up from No. 11 at the ranking's 2023 debut.