“This is about the future. The future of soccer, the future of Indy Eleven, and the future of Indiana.”
Those words rang cleanly through the Indiana State House on Thursday as Indy Eleven hosted the Stadium for Indiana rally in Downtown Indianapolis. The man that said those words was Peter Wilt, the former MLS Executive of the Year and currently is the President and General Manager of Indy Eleven.
The stadium that is being proposed is a 84 million dollar privately funded project that would provide a home for the second year Indy Eleven squad, along with providing an expansion team for the National Women’s Soccer League, and hold other events to off set the cost of building the stadium.
Outside the funding, the general question that follows is whether or not the team can support the stadium, as well as whether or not the team needs the stadium at its current level.
The rally on Thursday provided answers to all the non-financial questions. The need, desire, and support for the stadium is there. It has remained untapped due to the development of the team as well as the sport itself.
Soccer is no longer the underground sport. It’s no longer the sport you have to seek out ways to watch, and you don’t need to look hard to find a place to call home and discuss the game. Soccer is now a cultural gathering. People gather in bars on the weekends around a bucket of beer to watch the Premier League or one of the other European leagues. Even MLS has grown in 20 years, going from limbo and uncertainty as to whether or not they will be operating the next day (let alone the next season), to now getting major sponsorship deals.
Soccer is slowly building up the same way that baseball did in the 1910s. It’s a cultural things now. You root for your local team, or you find a team that fits your style or is fun to watch and you root for them.
With this growth has come the need for stadiums. A number of teams across the country split their stadium with another team from another sport. This can cause issues (like the New York City Football Club sharing Yankee Stadium) or works out well (Like Gillette Stadium).
Indy Eleven current shares a field with Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) and sold out the entire home schedule at this venue. While this is no small feat and the atmosphere is strong, not having a stadium for your team is a lot like renting bowling shoes. You know they’re yours while you’re using them, but at the end of the day you still have to return them because it’ll be someone else’s turn with the shoes after you leave.
A stadium for any soccer team, not just Indy Eleven, presents a huge chance to cement a foot in the door of soccer. Soccer specific stadiums allow your team to have a brand attached to it. A great read by a fellow writer here on LastWordOnSports.com (Matt Pollard) illustrates the background of stadiums in MLS. It’s a clear example of how the sport is growing. (Read here)
Indiana has always been a sports town. A NFL team with a consecutive streak of success in the Colts, a NBA franchise with a deep history of success in and out of the NBA, and the Brickyard 400 and Indy 500, two of the most historic races in NASCAR and IndyCar, Indiana has a plethora of sports at their helm. The choice to give Indy Eleven makes sense for what the state is about. The Midwest already sits on a hotbed of soccer towns with Columbus, Kansas City, and Chicago all having professional soccer teams along with soccer specific stadiums.
The decision will ultimately come down to the dollars and cents of the project. The rally brought awareness and media attention by showing that demand, desire, and passion for a club and supporters to have a place to call home. It’s down to those who care about the money of the project and politicians who may or may not understand the impact a soccer specific stadium can have on the game here in Indiana. If those with the votes decide to vote down the bill, it won’t stop the rise of soccer in the state, but will put a roadblock on the advancement of the city and the state as a home for sports and development of sports.
Main Photo: Artist rendering #StadiumForIndiana courtesy of IndyEleven.com
