First and foremost: The Colts are not going anywhere, but not so long ago there was some serious thought given to that. WTHR’S Bob Kravitz wrote a very informative piece about the team considering a move in the early 2000’s prior to Lucas Oil Stadium being built.
I remember the talk and the real fear that L.A. brought to the table for owners to get the upgrades they needed to compete in the modern NFL era. Anytime the NFL needed to strike fear in a fan base all that was needed was mentioning Los Angeles. The second component to this and probably equally important was drafting Peyton Manning. Had this not occurred it probably would have made it easier for Irsay to move the team out of Indianapolis. Let’s face the facts, although the Colts had some success with Jim Harbaugh and a few teams here and there, the fans were subject to a lot of bad football. It was really hard to grow a fan base when the team was referred as the “Dolts”. Manning even mentioned in interviews that he had to change the mentality of the teams he was playing as the team that was a “circle game on the schedule”.
Peyton brought a renaissance to Indianapolis and the base followed his lead. This created the atmosphere that turned the city into a Colts town. The city could not afford to lose the team either as it brought events to the city and revenue that comes with that. Besides the economic factor there was also a sense of pride of being an NFL city. These factors all resulted in Lucas Oil Stadium being built (which now looks to be a bargain when looking at the current ones now being constructed to the tune of billion plus dollars).
Irsay, according to Kravitz, didn’t want or ask for a new stadium but rather offset payments (money the city would give him based on certain criteria). This type of money was unsustainable for the city so the city developed plans and showed Irsay the monetary benefits and he eventually came around to see the value. It was good for the team and good for the city and also stabilized the franchise.
What was really interesting to me in the Kravitz article is the league telling city officials in Indianapolis that if the team ever moved out to not expect support for a team ever coming back. There really isn’t support from other owners as many of them felt the Colts siphoned off fans from other regional teams that were already in the market and the league never really wanted the Colts in Indianapolis, but as history and time has shown it was a good fit.
Now that the L.A. question has been answered by the league with one team for sure and a second waiting in the wings, how will this affect the relationship between teams and cities going forward? That is a question that seems harder to answer. For the short term it seems that the gun has been removed from cities facing a similar question that Indy encountered, but knowing the league like I do, I’m sure there is another boogeyman out there: London, Toronto, St. Louis, Mexico City, or more recently and unlikely Las Vegas. Also there has been rumblings of Chicago looking at a second team and that sounds like the league’s answer to Los Angeles. I just don’t see many in Chicago wanting another team since they already have a long standing franchise with “Da Bears”. Times have changed and teams have moved, however, we never had to see our team become the L.A. Colts, thanks to city officials and Irsay working together.
Here is the full article by Bob Kravitz:
