Once again, Indianapolis proves how it has totally lost its way when it comes to getting its priorities straight. Despite having horrible public schools, poorly-maintained public parks, tens of thousands of abandoned homes and virtually every critical service underfunded in order to have money to spend on anything related to sports, city leaders plan to raise $30 million in its bid to put on another Super Bowl in 2018. Nobody actually bothered to study the real numbers which proved that the costs of hosting the Super Bowl in 2012 offset any economic benefit that was gained from hosting it, unless you value the intangible benefit city leaders claim it gained in image in its ever-ending quest to make Indianapolis what they describe as a "world class" city. Buried deep in a
blog post by the IBJ's Anthony Schoettle is this passage:
Despite the money raised for the 2012 Super Bowl, the city’s Capital Improvement Board still lost about $1 million hosting the big game after paying for things like snow removal equipment, security, legal services, insurance, utilities, maintenance and extra trash pick-up.
The loss would likely have been greater if the city had contended with the snow and ice that is common here in February, when the game was held.
Melangton said the loss figures were “mischaracterized by the media.” Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard said the economic impact—including money to private businesses and local and state taxes raised from the activities surrounding the game—far exceeded the small loss.
“There’s no question,” Ballard said, “there was a significant and positive return [on investment] from this event.”
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