http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/sp...tml?ref=sports
.........It will be torn down and replaced with an expansion of the convention center. David Frick, the chairman of the Indiana Stadium and Convention Building Authority, said the current stadium cost $77.5 million to build. The new one will cost $720 million, he said, much of it paid by taxes on rental cars, luxury boxes, hotel and motel rooms, and restaurants, he said.
“Today, stadiums are bigger,” Frick said. “They are more attuned to the corporate purchaser rather than the general fan. They are designed for maximizing the revenue.” That will come from more luxury boxes, club seats and advertising signs, he said.
The Colts, not the taxpayers, will get the $121.5 million for the naming rights, Frick said. But the Colts’ Polian said the city would also benefit because a new stadium could lure a Super Bowl, national political conventions and other big events.
“We’ve got a fighting chance,” he said of procuring more and bigger business for Indianapolis. “The building is going to cause a geometric ripple effect.”
The new stadium is assured of the Final Fours of the men’s and women’s N.C.A.A. basketball tournaments.
Polian said the Colts needed more revenue to compete for talent or they would become, he said, like the Montreal Expos, who moved to Washington. He said the Colts would have considered leaving town, just as they left Baltimore less than a quarter-century ago.
“Fortunately, it didn’t come to that,” Polian said. “We love it here.”
The Fundamental Difference Between Kraft and Irsay
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