James BriggsIndianapolis Star
Much like pro wrestling legend Bobby "The Brain" Heenan, I'm an explicitly biased journalist with no pretense of objectivity. I'm also a pro wrestling mark, so take that into consideration with what I'm about to say.
World Wrestling Entertainment's multiyear deal with Indianapolis is one of the biggest sporting event announcements in the city's history. Maybe the biggest.
Bigger than the Super Bowl. There, I said it.
Briggs: Indy Eleven's loudest voices prove nothing about MLS support
Any one of those events would be huge in and of themselves. WWE has never awarded all three to a city as a package before. It's a truly stunning coup for Indianapolis.
It starts with the Royal Rumble on Feb. 1. The Royal Rumble is named for a match in which 30 wrestlers enter at two-minute intervals and throw one another over the top rope until there's a winner. It's my favorite wrestling event of the year. I'm apparently not alone. It's graduated from arenas to NFL stadiums in recent years.
This year's Royal Rumble in St. Petersburg, Florida, had an announced attendance of 48,000. The Lucas Oil Stadium event will likely eclipse that figure.
Economic impact analysis is a fool's errand, so let me make my case based on what we know. WWE has agreed to hold its three tentpole events in Indianapolis: the Royal Rumble in February, and SummerSlam and WrestleMania at dates to be determined. All of them will be at Lucas Oil Stadium.
"It's one of the biggest events on our calendar and one of the most exciting events on our calendar," WWE wrestler Seth Rollins said Monday at a press conference. "But that's kind of like an appetizer. That's just the start. WrestleMania is the big one. We're bringing it back."
Indeed.
WrestleMania is nothing like what it was when Indianapolis last hosted it at the Hoosier Dome in 1992. For starters, Indianapolis' WrestleMania will include two nights of action at Lucas Oil Stadium — for double the attendance — with a week of ancillary events, including a convention for fans, a hall-of-fame ceremony and a couple other big wrestling shows at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
This year's WrestleMania in Philadelphia attracted an announced attendance of more than 145,000 over two nights, not counting all the other events.
WrestleMania has not only grown to outstrip the event itself, but it's also larger than WWE. The global wrestling fanbase descends on the host city every spring, bringing independent pro wrestling promotions and smaller shows outside the official festivities. WrestleMania attracts fans from all 50 states and more than 50 countries, many of whom have no intention of attending the headline event.
Then there's SummerSlam, which is growing into a summertime version of WrestleMania. That'll fill Lucas Oil Stadium for another two nights and bring another week of activities, including more large wrestling shows, to town.
It's impossible to break down the WWE deal because financial terms were not disclosed. It's safe to say, though, that this package will cost Indianapolis tens of millions of dollars ranging from incentives to security costs.
But you know what it won't cost? A new stadium.
Outside the core rotating Super Bowl host cities, such as New Orleans and Miami, building new stadiums has become a prerequisite for hosting a Super Bowl. That's how Indianapolis got a Super Bowl in 2012, about four years after Lucas Oil Stadium opened.
That's an immense price to pay for a one-time event.
The WWE deal is better, not only because it's going to bring more people to town over multiple events in multiple years, but also because it shows Indianapolis continues to make the most of the venues in place.
As almost everyone noted during the WWE press conference Monday, Indianapolis just got done hosting the U.S. Olympic swimming trials at Lucas Oil Stadium. The building plays host to NCAA basketball Final Fours and football championships. It packed in crowds for NBA All-Star weekend. It's even getting Taylor Swift for three nights in November.
Every city wants to host a Super Bowl. Not every city can figure out what to do once the NFL behemoth comes and goes. I've been around Indianapolis long enough now to have regularly heard people ask, "How can we possibly keep this up?" I've asked it myself, at times, and I've been skeptical that events and conventions were a viable path forward in a post-pandemic world.
Indianapolis' first-of-its-kind package of WWE's top events offers yet another example of how this city never stops finding answers to what's next. The Indiana Sports Corp., the Capital Improvement Board and others who work on event hosting are absolutely the best in America.
I'm more excited about the wrestling shows than I have been about anything else that's rolled through town. But it's even better to know that, once the lights go down on WrestleMania, Indianapolis' shows will go on.
Contact James Briggs at 317-444-4732 orjames.briggs@indystar.com. Follow him onXandThreadsat @JamesEBriggs.
