Indianapolis's Global Identity

Some may say that location and geographic is everything when it comes to building a sport super city. Others, like Indianapolis, thought that this location could never be what the 15th largest city is today. Indianapolis went from Naptown to Super City successfully using sports as a tool for economic and socio-cultural development. This transformed the entire image that has put them on the pedestal for forming sports commissions and hosting different levels of sporting events. At the time, Indianapolis utilized the first-mover advantage, which no one had considered utilizing sports as a strategy. This ultimately helped paved the way for rebuilding a city that had nothing to lose. It also demonstrates how Indianapolis used the different market
segmentation to identify where they needed to take a risk in order to strategize and build what is, ‘The Amateur Sports Capital of the World’ (‘Naptown to Super City’). Not only was this advantage put to work effectively, but this set a standard that Indianapolis is willing to continuously keep up with the cost and demand of growth in sports tourism.
Geographically, Indianapolis utilized a powerful company to help build the sports initiative and to see the location thrive through the power of sports. Eli Lilly & Co. provided major funding from the Lilly Endowment toward building sports facilities in its corporate hometown. This became a powerful resource for Indianapolis to help rebuild and invent sports organizations from all the way to professional and youth. Indianapolis is well connected and within short distances for spectators to attend multiple sporting events. Spectators are able to have the convenience of buildings being interconnected within the city to attend events with the convenience of not having to go too far. This has impacted the city’s socio-cultural and economic goals greatly by spectators being able to participate at their convenience while enjoying the city’s businesses who contribute to these events. Indianapolis has been able to set the tone locally for major events by being able to create the nostalgia of its past as a celebration for its future in sports. The city is able to incorporate the Indianapolis culture into a major sporting event that makes it unique to locals and visitors.
Indianapolis’ transformation has impacted the city’s global identity through the experience that the city has overcome to get to where it is today.
From youth tournaments to Super Bowl host, Indianapolis is a result of 30-plus year’s experience of hosting and cultivating a variety of major sporting events. Indianapolis’ identity has been transformed by the time it takes to hosting an event, whether it is a week long or one-day. For example, this year Indianapolis will host the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500. This event in particular is the biggest one-day spectator-sporting event in the world. Indianapolis offers sports fans of different backgrounds the experience that fans want from a location that has put them on the map for all different levels of sports. Indy meets the needs a sports fan from youth, high school, college, amateur, and professional sports. Year-round, Indianapolis is continuously hosting sporting events that cater to its locals and visitors from all over the world. Executing a sports initiative strategy for socio-cultural and economic development set the standard for sporting events in Indianapolis. Through overcoming major adversity, Indianapolis has a lot to offer to sports fans to give them what they want from a host city of all kinds by headquartering major governing bodies’, building world class facilities, and hosting to winning major
championships.