Chris Gahl, the executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Visit Indy, isn’t naive. He knows the NFL Combine may be uprooted from Indianapolis – where it’s been held with remarkable and critically-important efficiency for the last three and a half decades – in the coming years. Indianapolis is only guaranteed to host the NFL Combine through 2024.
But that doesn’t mean Gahl and several high-profile Hoosiers – including Jim Irsay and the Indianapolis Colts’ organization – aren’t doing everything they can to keep the NFL Combine where it belongs.
“If you’re really trying to inform your draft decision-making,” Gahl said, “there is no better city.”
Indianapolis last year fended off bids from Dallas and Los Angeles to earn hosting rights for the NFL Combine in 2023 and 2024. In 2022, so much of the chatter around the halls of the Indianapolis Convention Center and at bars and restaurants from Prime 47 to St. Elmo’s to High Velocity was about how disappointed everyone would be if the NFL Combine were to leave here.
Indianapolis is well-equipped to host the NFL Combine by allowing all 32 teams the most productive, efficient process to gather information ahead of the NFL Draft. Players only have to travel five minutes from the Indianapolis Convention Center to an IU Health facility for medical imaging and testing, which is a critically-important aspect to the NFL Combine. Once they’re under the convention center roof, they don’t have to go outside again – their hotels are connected by sky bridges, and Lucas Oil Stadium is connected by a tunnel.
“It’s nearly impossible to replicate the ease in which these prospects go through a battery of tests in a very short amount of time,” Gahl said. “IU Health is the linchpin for Indianapolis hanging on to this. It has been and will be, and we put that first and foremost when we go out to retain this.”
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at News…