Intangible Benefits

So what was your day like today? Good? Bad? Indifferent? Did anybody out there watch the television news at either noon, five, six, ten, or eleven - and catch, perhaps, some coverage of the Super Bowl champion Colts? How did it make you feel, to see the city in full-on celebration mode, with so many people smiling and laughing and having a good time? Good? Bad? Indifferent?

I’m curious, actually, for a specific reason - one that affects all of us in Indianapolis, sports fans and non-sports fans alike. I’m talking about the new stadium being built down there on the south side of downtown - the place that will be called Lucas Oil Stadium and will be the new home for the Indianapolis Colts come the 2008 season.

The building of the stadium has come under fire because its construction uses taxpayer dollars that might otherwise have been spent on schools, infrastructure, property tax relief, the police force - you name it, and the money being used to build the new stadium probably could have been used for it instead, less to the consternation of the taxpayers than for what those dollars are going for, which is to build a place for upwards of 70,000 mostly wealthy people to gather in order to watch a small number of much wealtheir people play a professional football game eight Sundays a year for the next twenty-odd years.

(The stadium will be used for much, much more than just eight home Colts game a year - I am well aware of this; and the expanded convention center will be good for the city, too. I just want to focus on the Colts for the moment, however.)

Proponents of the building of the stadium, even at taxpayer expense, will make many arguments in favor of the construction of the stadium - they will cite the money events held at it will generate for the people who work at the stadium, the money in the form of sales and other taxes that will be generated for the city, the national prestige that comes with having a pro football team in the city, and the opportunities a bigger and better stadium will bring to the city - such as the opportunity to host the Super Bowl, which the city is already had at work on. City officials were in Miami this week to observe the goings-on during Super Bowl week and to cozy up to NFL officials with the hope of enticing the league to grant Indianapolis the privilege of hosting Super Bowl XLV, in the year 2011.

You may even have heard of what some proponents like to call the “intangible benefits” of having a pro sports team and the stadium or arena in which they play located in your hometown. When pressed to explain what those benefits are, however, many stadium proponents find it difficult to explain exactly what they mean by “intangible benefits.”

So, while it’s still relatively fresh in everyone’s heads, take a quick second to think about whether or not anything you saw or read on Monday pertaining to the Colts and their Super Bowl victory made you feel good - either about the Colts in ways you had never felt before, or about the city in general, or perhaps even about the new stadium being built.

If you work or play downtown, did you happen to run into any Colts fans dressed up for the parade and rally? Was anyone at your workplace dressed up in Colts gear today? What about your classmates, or the customers at your job?

Hell, maybe it just brightened your day a little to see or read the news lead with something other than how many people were killed in Iraq yesterday by the most recent suicide bomber.

Anybody who is not ordinarily emotionally invested in the Colts experience any kind of positive energy today that was related to the fact that the Colts won the Super Bowl? Do you know anyone who had that kind of experience?

I don’t mean to condescend to non-sport fans by bringing this up - my intent here is to point out some of the things that the die-hard Colts fans are talking about when they mention the “intangible benefits” of having the Colts and their stadium here in Indianapolis. It’s a fairly nebulous concept - but you saw proof of it today on the television news, in the newspaper, and on the faces of the fans downtown.

It may not be worth a whole lot, but it is something: if you could give a frog’s fat ass about the Colts every other day of the year, but managed to smile just a little bit as you drove down Capitol Avenue this afternoon and saw jersey-clad people pouring into the Hoosier Dome - that’s a benefit of having the team and the stadium, even if there is no dollar value attached to it, and even if it doesn’t mean that much to you.

I, personally, had a great time downtown today - even though it was dangerously cold and I wasn’t down there for very long. I got downtown a little before four and parked on Pennsylvania Street, then walked through University Park and down Meridian Street to Monument Circle, which I followed around to Meridian Street again. From there I ducked into Borders to thaw out for a bit - and because I have a Borders gift card in my wallet, a Christmas present from Amy’s parents that I haven’t figure out how to spend yet.

After I thawed out, I walked down Meridian Street and made my way over to Capitol Avenue, where I walked over to the Hoosier Dome, bought a Colts Super Bowl newspaper pack from a guy who said he was freezing his ass off, and then stood near the guard rail and just watched the people going into the Hoosier Dome. Just before that, as I crossed Maryland Street amongst a throng of folks headed for the Dome, the cars waiting for the light to change so they could continue east along Maryland started honking their horns at the encouragement of the people crossing the street - the pedestrians and the motorists fed off of one another, and off of the positive energy in the air, and you could feel how good everyone felt - even in the cold.

I did a couple more passes, ducking twice into the mall to thaw out. I stopped by the Colts Pro Shop to see if they had any Super Bowl skull caps (negative), and noted that there were no patrons in the Pacers House Arrest Gift Shop either time I walked by. Had it been warmer, or were my wife less pregnant, we might have made an evening of gallivanting about downtown. Once it became clear, however, that the promised parade would be very, very late, if it materialized at all, I sauntered back to my car and headed home.

But I had a grand time - especially considering that this was not remotely a day on which I thought I would get to have a walk about downtown. I feel absolutely certain that having the Colts here, along with their stadium, makes Indianapolis a better place to live - and I hope that every single person who reads this (I am constantly amazed that people have the patience to sit through these rambling odysseys of mine - and I thank you) felt at least a little bit of the positive - perhaps intangible - energy that was flowing through this city today.

Peace.