Indiana Preps | The State

Sports Business Journal just ranked Indianapolis number three among the best sports business cities in the country — moving up from number five in 2024 and number eleven in 2023. Two years. Eight spots. That’s not a coincidence. That’s a city executing a vision.
The credentials are hard to argue with. Indianapolis has hosted NBA and WNBA All-Star Games, the most lucrative WWE Royal Rumble on record, U.S. Olympic swimming trials that drew more than 285,000 fans to Lucas Oil Stadium, and eight Big Ten championships through 2028. The NFL Combine has called Indianapolis home every single year since 1987, with at least two more guaranteed. This spring, the city hosted the Final Four for all three divisions of NCAA men’s basketball simultaneously — a logistical achievement that almost no other city in the country could pull off.
The infrastructure behind all of it is what separates Indianapolis from cities twice its size. More than 37,000 downtown hotel rooms. Major venues within walking distance of each other. North America’s most extensive skywalk system. Twelve hotels connected directly to the Indiana Convention Center, with underground corridors linking to Lucas Oil Stadium. The city is essentially one giant sports campus — and it functions like one.
What’s coming next makes the current picture look like a warmup. The NCAA women’s Final Four for all three divisions arrives in 2028. The men’s Final Four follows in 2029. A new skywalk will connect Gainbridge Fieldhouse to a mixed-use development that includes a Ritz-Carlton and a Live Nation music venue. The Indiana Convention Center is adding 143,500 square feet tied to an 800-room Signia by Hilton. And Indiana University’s $110 million James T. Morris Arena will serve as the national headquarters for USA Track & Field.
Indianapolis is the smallest city in the top ten by population — 2.2 million — and carries the lowest per diem rate among the group at $213. It is doing all of this without the market size that most of its competitors rely on. That’s not a footnote. That’s the whole point.
For the athletes, families, and programs Indiana Preps covers every day, this matters beyond the business headlines. The infrastructure being built around sports in this state — the venues, the events, the investment, the visibility — creates opportunity at every level. High school athletes in Indiana are growing up in a sports ecosystem that the rest of the country is paying attention to. That’s not nothing. That’s a foundation.
Read the full Sports Business Journal story here: Best Sports Business Cities: No. 3 Indianapolis

Indiana Preps covers high school athletics, recruiting, and athlete development across the state of Indiana.