INDIANAPOLIS – The Big Ten football championship game will remain in the only home it’s ever known for at least four more years.
Commissioner Tony Petitti, speaking at conference media days Tuesday, confirmed the decision to keep the title game at Lucas Oil Stadium through 2028. In a separate conversation with IndyStar, Petitti cited Indianapolis’ history with the game and the conference, as well as its reputation as a host city for major sporting events, as crucial factors in the extension.
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Even as the conference expands westward, Indy’s embrace of the Big Ten championship game since its inception in 2011 has kept the partnership between the city and the league office strong. Maintaining the conference championship game in Indianapolis manifests that strength going forward.
“The city and the community have really embraced the event,” Petitti said. “It’s impactful. You can really feel it when you’re there.”
Like the SEC with Atlanta, the Big Ten has made Indianapolis synonymous with its football championship since the conference began awarding its league title via that method more than a decade ago.
Lucas Oil Stadium — which has also hosted multiple Final Fours, a Super Bowl and this year’s Olympic swimming trials, among other things — housed all 13 Big Ten championship games to date, with the 14th scheduled for Dec. 7.
This agreement will guarantee that number goes at least as far as 18 without interruption. Petitti credited Indianapolis’ infrastructure, as well as the various entities within the city experienced in supporting large-scale events, as crucial to the Big Ten’s decision to keep the title game where it is.
“It gives us a lot of confidence. Track record is really important. They’re in position to do this because they’ve been so successful,” Petitti told IndyStar. “Everybody that’s involved with the game in Indianapolis has shown that dedication throughout the (game’s history). We have 100% confidence that will continue.”
Chiefly among those, Indiana Sports Corp, a longtime Big Ten partner and crucial institution in the city’s pursuit of major sporting events.
Since 1979, the Sports Corp has marshaled the city’s resources and bound together its various stakeholders to make Indianapolis one of the nation’s most successful event-hosting cities. Indiana Sports Corp’s ties to the Big Ten run deep, the conference having hosted myriad events across multiple sports here down the years.
Sports Corps President Patrick Talty said his organization focused its bid for the upcoming four Big Ten championship games by “not taking for granted that relationship.” The working ethos of Indianapolis’ bid for this extension was to “earn it again.”
“We went out and worked hard, and tried to show them why Indianapolis is the community to be in,” Talty told IndyStar.
That forward-thinking approach fit a conference in the midst of significant change.
This week’s media days will run across three days instead of the customary two, a change engineered to fit four inbound West Coast schools into the schedule. As the Big Ten expands to the Pacific, with the arrival of USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington, it also wades deep into a media deal now fully activated and including three distinct partners: Fox, CBS and NBC.
Additionally, the game itself often carries national implications — the Big Ten has placed at least one team in the College Football Playoff in eight of its first 10 years, and the league is one of just two to see multiple teams selected in the same season at least once.
“The national impact of this matchup is going to be pretty significant,” Petitti said.
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Talty said the Sports Corp approached this fresh bid considering all those factors — the importance of the game, how to cater to an increasingly national fan base, how to involve those TV partners even more intimately, and so forth — while maintaining what has grown into a tradition rivaling the SEC of a single recognized host city for a major conference championship game. Talty praised a variety of partners, from the Capital Improvement Board, to the Colts, to the Pacers, to operations at Lucas Oil Stadium, to local government, and on, for their contributions to the effort to keep the game in Indy.
“We see fans from every team, people wearing jerseys and gear from every team in the Big Ten here in Indianapolis during (championship week),” Talty said. “I’m biased, but I think we’re the best city for it, in terms of proximity, in terms of history, in terms of the community coming together.”
Beginning this year, the game’s participants will be determined by conference-wide finish, with the Big Ten’s divisional alignment eliminated.
There’s every chance Indianapolis could host a league championship game comprised of West Coast teams, something Talty said the Sports Corp recognizes already. There are plans to enhance the airport experience for fans flying in for the game, as well as marketing efforts underway in West Coast markets to reach the conference’s new fan bases.
For an event Talty said brings an estimated economic impact of $25 million to Indianapolis annually, the Sports Corp was thorough in its preparation.
Now, it will get four more years to hone that skill. The city will host from 2024-28 at least, with the Big Ten adding Discover as the first-ever title sponsor of the game itself.
Indy can build onto habits developed over more than a decade spent hosting the game — as well as decades, plural, hosting major events like it — as it grows its Big Ten championship game experience in the future.
“The group there knows how to do this,” Petitti said. “They know what this championship game is about.”
Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.
