WEBVTT - Episode 2 - FINAL VERSION.mp3 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:16.840 Hm, take a lived here. It was like a minimum security. 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:22.079 David Letterman, an Indianapolis Natives, spent some time riffing on 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:25.800 his hometown during the dedication ceremony for Peyton Manning statue 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:28.280 outside Luke Soil Stadium a few years ago. 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:39.840 Indianapol years ago, I said. 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:42.639 I go to Indiana Chicago. 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:50.000 We truly were napped out, and I draw the comparison 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:51.400 with Louisville. 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:55.440 That's Bill Benner, a longtime reporter for the Indianapolis Star 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:58.800 who now works for the Indiana Pacers. We spoke at 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:01.920 length about the history of Indianapolis, and you'll hear plenty 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:05.280 of our conversation on this podcast, But toward the end 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:07.319 of our chat, he brought up a point that drove 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:10.520 home just how important sports have been to the growth 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:11.080 of our city. 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:17.680 In nineteen sixty seven, Louisville and the Pacers both got 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:21.399 ABA franchises, but other than that, we were at one 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:23.200 event in town. They had the Kentucky Derby, We had 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:25.840 the Indy five hunder and they had UK and we 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:30.000 had IU. And by sustaining the Pacers and moving into 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:35.600 the NBA and then attracting the Colts and building the facilities. 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:40.160 We became Indianapolis the amateur sports capital of the world, 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:45.199 did all the downtown development along with that. Louisville didn't 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:49.800 sustain the colonels when they into the NBA, and it 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:55.000 took him forever to really get into downtown development. And 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:58.880 a big reason for that, the comparison to two cities 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:03.800 was the fact that we made the investments and and 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:08.360 made kept the Pacers here and built the facilities, and 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:13.320 Louisville didn't. And Louisville has yet to catch up, in 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:16.320 my humble opinion, but it's a it's a good comparison 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:20.239 of two cities that were very similar back in the 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:24.040 late sixties and how one did this and the other one? 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:28.040 Gaggle think about Indianapolis now as we know it, This 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:30.239 city still is known for the Indy five hundred. 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:34.160 He's making a book, No Pipe. 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:36.919 Indianapolis. 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:42.400 He wanted parlight and for its rich basketball tradition from 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:45.120 high school hoops to Hinklefield House to the Fever and 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:45.760 the Pacers. 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:47.720 Welcome Indiana, Baca. 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:51.120 But Indianapolis is elevated not just on a local scale, 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:55.280 but a national scale and a worldwide scale. For one 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:59.560 big reason. Richardson can i take off on a quarterback drawl. 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:02.000 He said that ten he's at the foot untouched in 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:02.640 the end to. 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:07.760 Touchdown by ind why Anthony Richardson. 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:12.000 Forty years ago, a fleet of Mayflower moving vans arrived 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:16.240 in America's heartland, bringing the Colts to Indianapolis after thirty 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:18.480 one years in Baltimore. The Colts have now been in 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:23.000 Indianapolis for four decades, fair or not. Because Indianapolis has 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:26.040 the Colts, it's thought of as a major American city. 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:28.880 Louisville's a really full little city, but I call it little. 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:31.880 Debbie Knox began reporting and anchoring at WISH TV in 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:32.560 nineteen eighty. 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:35.640 Indianapolis now is I just seized as a major league 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:38.640 city because we've got this NFL franchise and we got 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:41.320 an eight basketball team as well, So that's that's a 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:42.160 very good comparison. 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:45.360 I've also heard us compared to Columbus, Ohio, but that's 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:48.040 where we could be today. We'd have the five hundred 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:49.440 and maybe we'd. 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:53.360 Have an NBA team, you know, and then what you 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:57.360 got to compete and you got God loved the risk takers, 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:01.040 you know, who have the vision and can see things 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:03.320 in how they could be and they they've got the 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:06.560 knowledge to look out at the horizon and see other 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:09.040 cities and what they're doing and how it's impacting. 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:10.880 The look at the NFL, it's a mass. I mean, 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:12.760 just what a business. 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:16.400 Knox hits on something here. The Colts transformed and are 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:20.480 still transforming Indianapolis. How we feel about our city and 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:25.080 how we're perceived both nationally and internationally is unquestionably tied 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:27.760 to having our pro football team. But the story of 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:31.040 how the Colts got here isn't exactly straightforward. It took 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:34.120 two mayors sticking their political necks out to use sports 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:38.480 to develop a mid sized Midwestern metropolis downtown. It took 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:41.240 a Jerry Lewis style telethon to save the city's pro 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:44.240 basketball team, and it took building a state of the 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:48.440 art sixty thousand seat stadium despite not having a tenant 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:51.680 to even get Indianapolis a lottery ticket to become an 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:55.360 NFL city. And then it took a cascade of serendipitous 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:58.200 events and a bit of good fortune for those Mayflower 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:02.000 trucks to roll into Indianapolis on March twenty ninth, nineteen 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:06.240 eighty four, carrying in them an NFL team. This is 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:17.360 episode two of the Move Indianapolis. Indianapolis was established in 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:20.120 the eighteen hundreds, but our story begins in the late 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:24.520 nineteen sixties. Richard Lueger was elected mayor of Indianapolis in 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:27.760 November of nineteen sixty seven, and he took office with 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:31.640 an ambitious vision for the circle city. His plan was 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:35.120 called Unigov, and Luger wanted to merge the governments of 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:40.839 Indianapolis and Marion County into one single municipal government. Ultimately, 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:45.000 that meant ten suburban towns were absorbed into that singular government, 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:48.679 which boosted the population of Indianapolis to nearly seven hundred 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:53.120 and fifty thousand residents by nineteen seventy. Luger, who died 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:56.279 in twenty nineteen, recalled the goal and impact of Yunigov 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:58.760 during a press conference in twenty fourteen in. 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:03.440 Annapolis and through the Unigov experience, because we really did 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:07.160 have a desire for greatness, for a city that was 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:11.120 well beyond anything we had ever seen before in terms 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:12.960 of our imagination. 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:14.000 Of what could occur now. 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:15.440 Not everybody feared that. 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:19.880 Some people provedly satisfied with life as it was, but 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:23.960 ultimately a majority of people. We're very excited about being 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:25.880 the best or vying to be the best. 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:29.640 While UNIGOV was not met with universal praise, it did 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:32.440 set Indianapolis down a different path as a city. 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:38.160 UNIGOV was the most significant municipal government reform in the 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:42.360 United States in the last hundred years that was not 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:47.720 inspired by corruption or bad behavior. 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:51.320 Jim Morris was Luger's deputy mayor until nineteen seventy three, 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:53.320 and he's one of the key players in the growth 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:55.320 of Indianapolis over the last fifty years. 0:06:55.880 --> 0:07:01.440 So when UNIGOV took place, overnight, Annapolis went from being 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:06.719 in terms of population, went from being the thirtieth largest 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:10.800 city in America to the ninth largest city. And now 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:13.720 it was a bit of a fiction, but we went 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:17.360 from eighty square miles to four hundred and two square miles. 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:23.200 We became the ninth largest city in America between Baltimore 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:27.920 and San Diego. So suddenly, when a list of the 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:32.920 top ten cities was published in the Almanac or any publication, 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:35.000 Indianapolis was on that list. 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:39.280 After Yunikov, Luger, Morris, and the local government set their 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:44.560 sites on revitalizing and growing downtown Indianapolis, even with adding 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:49.000 all those outlying Marion County communities and neighborhoods, Luger's administration 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:53.360 understood downtown was the one area of the city everybody 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:56.040 could use. It was the center of a vibrant city's 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:58.160 tax base, and it could be the engine for the 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:01.440 growth of an entire city. And one of the major 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:05.440 catalysts for setting Indianapolis on that upward trajectory was its 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:09.240 pro basketball team, the Indiana Pacers. 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:16.679 A second point year had a third time his Hobby 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:20.200 Leonard five year tenure. The Indiana Pacers not won it. 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:23.800 The same year Luger was elected mayor, the Indiana Pacers 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:27.520 began playing as a charter member of the American Basketball Association, 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:31.320 that old upstar challenger to the NBA with its trademark Red, White, 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:35.160 and Blue Basketball. The Pacers dominated the early years of 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:38.600 the ABA, winning three championships in the league's first six 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:42.439 years of existence. But the Pacers played at the Indiana 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:46.000 State Fairgrounds Coliseum, a small arena located on thirty eighth 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:49.360 Street north of downtown. That's where not only the Pacers played, 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:52.160 but most events that came through Indianapolis took place. 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:56.560 The coliseum was big, but downtown not quite so much. 0:08:57.040 --> 0:08:59.400 Jimmy Batis is a local native and a long time 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:00.800 Indianapolis radio host. 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:04.359 It was a little sleepier, not as much going on downtown, 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:08.040 but there were still lots going on, and the Pacers 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:10.760 were a big part of that. But back then I 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:12.760 used to go to their games at the Coliseum. As 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:15.760 a matter of fact, the very first concert I ever 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:18.040 went to I think I was fourteen, and it was 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:21.880 at the Coliseum and it was the Jackson Five and 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:23.720 their opening act were the Commodoors. 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:26.360 Around the same time as the Pacers were thriving, though, 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:30.360 the Indiana High School Basketball Tournament moved from Butler's hinklefield 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:33.640 House in Indianapolis to i Use Assembly Hall about an 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:38.400 hour south in Bloomington. Ticket demand had outgrown hinklefield House's capacity, 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:41.199 and for the nineteen seventy one seventy two season, the 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:46.000 tournament left Indianapolis and Luger, he just like about everyone 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:49.240 else in this state, was a huge basketball fan. He 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:51.360 wanted to build a proper venue not only to house 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:54.360 the Pacers, but to bring the state's fabled high school 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:56.560 basketball tournament back to Indianapolis. 0:09:56.960 --> 0:09:59.960 When the idea of an Arena was in the sleep flow. 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:03.040 Some people wanted to put it out off of I 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:06.880 sixty fivener where Lafayette Square is today, and that's when 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:09.719 Dick Licker said, no, no, no, If we're going to 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:12.760 do this, it has to be downtown because it has 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:16.680 to be that catalyst for future downtown development. 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:20.839 Luger got his way on October twentieth, nineteen seventy one, 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:24.559 with a nine figure contribution from the city, ground was 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:28.480 broken on a sixteen thousand seat arena on Market Street 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:33.320 in downtown Indianapolis. Three years later, Market Square Arena opened 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:35.800 its doors as one of the largest arenas of its 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:38.760 kind in the United States, and it gave Indianapolis its 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:42.319 first top tier venue for sports, concerts, and events, and 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:44.840 it gave folks a reason to be in downtown Indianapolis. 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:49.000 Dick Licker was the first one to recognize that downtown 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:52.600 needed to be far more vibrant than it was. Quite honestly, 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:58.000 we only had two or three restaurants people At five o'clock, 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:02.760 downtown shut down and people scattered to their homes in 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:03.640 the suburbs. 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:07.679 From nineteen seventy four, when Market Square Arena opened through 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:11.360 nineteen eighty six, more than one point six billion dollars 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:15.679 were poured into downtown construction projects in Indianapolis. According to 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:18.280 a nineteen eighty six article in the Los Angeles Times, 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:22.600 office buildings, hotels, restaurants, and shops sprung up. The one 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:26.240 hundred and sixty thousand square foot Indiana Convention Center was 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:29.360 also completed in nineteen seventy two, and that's another key 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:33.000 part of the vision for Indianapolis. Market Square Arena would 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:36.640 host Elvis Presley's final concert in nineteen seventy seven, and 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:40.560 in nineteen seventy eight, the owner of Indianapolis's professional hockey team, 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:44.120 the Racers, who also played at Market Square Arena, made 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:47.680 an audacious move. For a remarkable fee at the time 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:51.280 of one point seventy five million dollars, he signed the 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:55.360 top junior player in Canada, a seventeen year old by 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:59.199 the name of Wayne Gretzky. Gretzky played eight games for 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:02.640 the Indianapolis and he took classes at Broad Ripple High 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:05.439 School before the team's financial situation led him to be 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:08.640 sold to the Edmonton Oilers. But all of a sudden, 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:12.240 downtown Indianapolis was a destination for locals and out of 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:15.599 towners alike, and for a city previously known for just 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:18.640 its five hundred mile race, it was fitting that the 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:22.160 government and business community's vision to build around sports was 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:24.000 at the center of those efforts. 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:26.240 It was controversial, people said, and why are you throwing 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:30.839 tax bunny public subsidies at this basketball arena? But it 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:33.959 turned out to be the first domino to fall the 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:35.559 redevelopment of downtown. 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:45.040 But the progress Indianapolis made after building Market Square Arena 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:48.720 was not guaranteed. The Pacers had to sustain the success 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:51.960 they had at the State Fairgrounds after moving downtown. Under 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:55.000 legendary head coach Slick Leonard, the Pacers made the ABA 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:58.120 Finals in their first year at Marcus Square Arena. But 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:00.680 the Pacers, a few months after moved into their brand 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:04.400 new digs, were in deep financial trouble. They asked the 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:07.880 ABA for a financial assistance just after Christmas in nineteen 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:11.120 seventy four, and though ownership vowed to keep the team 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:14.040 in Indianapolis, not even half a year after setting up 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:17.599 shop at Market Square Arena, there were already rumors the 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:21.679 Pacers may skip town. Still, two years later, the Indiana 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:23.120 Pacers made the Big show. 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:25.880 Four teams will be absorbed into the NBA next year. 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:29.000 The rest of the league will terminate operations exactly. 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:29.599 You know it. 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:31.800 Wait, wait, what did you say? 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:35.120 The Nets, the Spurs, the Pacers, and the Nuggets are 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:36.520 going to play in the NBA next season. 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:38.000 The rest of us are going to dissolve. 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:40.719 The terms of the ABA's merger with the NBA, though, 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:44.280 were not favorable to those four teams. The NBA tree 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:46.679 to the Pacers like an expansion team, meaning they had 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:49.439 to pay the league's expansion fee of three point two 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:51.880 million dollars, which back then was quite a bit of 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:54.679 money to put up. The Pacers were also not allowed 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:57.920 to participate in the nineteen seventy six NBA Draft, and 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:00.520 for the first few years in the NBA, they weren't 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:03.400 even allowed to share in the league's TV revenue. Still, 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:07.280 the Pacers were Indiana's pro basketball team. They moved to 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:10.040 the NBA maybe with a little help from the Chicago Bulls, 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:13.360 made sense both locally and nationally. 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:15.079 They were very, very popular. 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:18.040 Bill Benner began covering the Pacers for the Indianapolis Star 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:21.640 in nineteen seventy four, their first season at Market Square Arena, but. 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:26.040 Then once they went into the NBA, George McGinnis left 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:29.320 for the seventy six ers. Roger Brown got old, Bell 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:32.800 Daniels got old, and so they As they were moving 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:38.240 into the NBA, the roster changed. They weren't successful, and 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:43.320 crowds dwindled and they became less popular. You know, we 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:47.400 all love a winner. And because of the financial hardships 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:53.160 that the ownership as encountering, it was difficult to attract 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:56.480 talent to the early NBA Pacers. 0:14:56.800 --> 0:14:59.320 The Pacers went thirty six and forty six in their 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.920 first year the NBA, and their financial realities began to 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:05.960 set in for the team's ownership. The top players from 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:09.880 their ABA days were one by one sold off. Rumors 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:12.200 the team would pick up and leave for greener financial 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:15.640 pastures began to pick up steam Arena Sports. A group 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:18.840 of local investors who owned the Pacers made it known 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:21.800 that without an influx of cash, they would either have 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:24.720 to move the team or sell the team with no 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:28.160 guarantee the new owner would keep the Pacers in Indianapolis. 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:31.560 In fact, the Pacers ownership group didn't even have enough 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:34.600 money to meet payroll. In the summer of nineteen seventy seven, 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:39.200 the Indiana Pacers were on the verge of collapse. And 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:41.520 this wasn't just a threat that the city would lose 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:44.840 its basketball team. The threat was that if the Pacers left, 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:48.400 a lot of the downtown momentum created by Mayor Luger 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:52.040 that new Mayor Bill Hudnutt hoped to push forward would 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:52.640 be halted. 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:56.320 The Pacers after they moved into Marcus Square Arena, they 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:59.360 struggled when they moved into the NBA, and they had 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:05.160 to have a telethon to sustain support for the franchise. 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:08.240 With their sources for money dried up, the Pacers were 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:11.400 all but out of options. Nancy Leonard, the team's general 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:14.520 manager and the wife of coach Slick Leonard, proposed a 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:19.160 last ditch option, a Jerry Lewis style telethon with the 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:22.880 goal of selling eight thousand season tickets, which would give 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:25.720 the team the influx of cash it needed to stay afloat. 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:29.880 The telethon was called, in stark terms, the Save the 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:33.680 Pacers Telethon. As Benner wrote in the Indianapolis Star on 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:37.560 July third, nineteen seventy seven, quote, either they sell eight 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:41.400 thousand season tickets and survive, or they don't. This was 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:45.080 quite literally a doer die moment for the Pacers, and 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:48.720 in reality, it was a doer die moment for professional 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:54.120 sports in the city of Indianapolis. Miraculously it worked. Nancy 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:56.760 Leonard grabbed the mic with tears in her eyes just 0:16:56.880 --> 0:16:59.080 as the clock was about to strike midnight on the 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:03.680 Indiana Pacers. They were at eight twenty eight tickets sold. 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:13.280 The Pacers were saved. They would stay in Indianapolis for now. 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:16.480 And the importance of that moment, when the Pacers were 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:20.000 financially viable enough to stay in Indianapolis should not be 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:22.960 lost on anyone who knows what the city is like today. 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:24.920 The Pacers were really the hub. 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:30.520 They had great success, right ABA championship, beloved players. If 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:33.879 that would have happened, I don't know that you build 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:38.280 the convention business that you have built, and the hotels 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:43.320 and the restaurants and all that sort of thing, the jobs, Yeah, 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:44.919 that was mado. 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:48.320 Think about it. If Indianapolis, the biggest city in the 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:51.439 most hoops crazy state in the Union, couldn't support its 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:54.440 pro basketball team, how the hell could it support anything 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:56.000 else when it comes to professional sports. 0:17:56.320 --> 0:18:01.440 I think this very very possible, if not likely, that 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:06.560 had the Pacers ended up moving, that the public would 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:10.800 have shipped their ahead and said no to further investment 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:14.520 in sport. That would that was a big, big thing 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:17.920 that occurred that kind of cleared the way for the 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:19.159 Colts still eventually come here. 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:23.080 Rumors would still persist about the pacers potential to skip town, though. 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:26.439 In nineteen seventy nine, that local group of investors who 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:29.440 owned the team sold the Pacers to Sam Nassy, a 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:33.240 Beverly Hills businessman who had close ties to doctor Jerry Buss, 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:38.000 the architect of the showtime Los Angeles Lakers. Nassy pledged 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:40.399 to keep the Pacers in Indianapolis, touting a ten year 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:43.040 agreement to play at Market Square Arena upon buying the 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:46.160 team that year, But in the early nineteen eighties, chatter 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:49.960 persisted that the California based Nassy had his eyes on 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:53.159 getting out of Indianapolis and turning the franchise into the 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:55.359 Sacramento Pacers, and there. 0:18:55.359 --> 0:19:00.960 Was a lot of speculation that Sam Nassy wanted to 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:08.200 move the Indiana Pacers to the West coast, Sacramento, San Diego, 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:11.359 maybe another team in LA who knows. 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:15.000 Nassy made clear his intention to sell the Pacers in 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:18.480 the early nineteen eighties, but Indianapolis was not a community 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:22.840 stocked with multimillionaires willing to own a major professional sports franchise. 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:25.840 The threat of an outside investor buying the Pacers and 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:30.359 ripping them out of downtown Indianapolis was very real. At 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:33.800 the eleventh hour, though, two brothers and shopping mall magnets 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:36.440 stepped in to purchase the Pacers in nineteen eighty three, 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:41.199 Herb and Mel Simon. They were Indianapolis natives, and they 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:44.200 bought the Pacers more out of civic pride than anything else. 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:48.160 Without the Simon brothers, Indianapolis could have lost the Pacers, 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:51.480 and without the Pacers, would Indianapolis even have had a 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:54.720 shot at luring the Colts from Baltimore. Mike Chappel, in 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:57.520 Indianapolis native and the dean of the Colts Speed, has 0:19:57.600 --> 0:19:59.600 covered every minute of the team since they arrived in 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:03.080 nineteen four, and he pondered that very same question. 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:06.240 Had the Pacers left, I mean, I can't imagine what 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:08.800 the city would have done. Would they have been able 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:11.720 to get up an NFL franchise, I don't know. 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:16.240 The Indiana Pacers were absolutely a central figure in bringing 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:18.520 professional football to Indianapolis. 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:21.520 Well, we had the Pacers. They were successful. 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:27.000 They had been successful in the ABA, and I think 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:31.760 the success of the Pacers sort of helped the community 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:37.199 think that an NFL football team was a possibility. 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:48.960 But they're just one part of this story. Toward the 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:51.680 end of his second term as mayor, Richard Lueger announced 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:53.840 he'd run for a US Senate seat in the nineteen 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:56.600 seventy six election. He won that race, by the way, 0:20:56.800 --> 0:20:59.160 and he represented Indiana in the Senate all the way 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:02.840 until twenty thirty. That left a decision for Indianapolis voters 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:06.560 in the nineteen seventy five mayoral election between Robert Welch 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:09.800 and Bill Hudnutt, the six foot sixth former pastor at 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:13.440 Second Presbyterian Church at seventy seven hundred North Meridian Street. 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:17.280 Hudnut's vision for the city was not only aligned with Lugers, 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:21.199 he was even more ambitious. He prevailed, defeating Welch by 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:25.119 a margin of about twelve thousand votes. Welch was himself 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:28.400 on board with Indianapolis using sports to revitalize its downtown. 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:31.159 We'll get back to him later. Hudnutt, though, saw an 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:34.040 opportunity for Indianapolis to put itself on the map nationally 0:21:34.160 --> 0:21:36.560 outside of one weekend in May for the Indy five hundred. 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:39.119 He was really a visionary, you know. I mean, he 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:42.440 had heard enough of indian ill place and you know, 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:47.640 with a sleepy downtown, he wanted to push the city forward. 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:48.040 You know. 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:51.000 Bill Hudnut's great line was, you can't be a suburb 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:51.840 of nothing. 0:21:52.640 --> 0:21:55.800 With the Pacers stability insured. In nineteen seventy seven, Hudnut, 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:59.080 in tandem with the local government and business community, turned 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:02.320 Indianapolis as attention to the city's next step in building 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:06.920 around sports. In nineteen seventy eight, Congress passed the Amateur 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:10.480 Sports Act, which created the US Olympic Committee. The US 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:13.679 Olympic Committee then was able to charter national governing bodies 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:16.520 for each sport, such as USA Track and Field and 0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:19.879 USA Swimming, and Indianapolis saw an opportunity to become a 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:22.600 destination for those sports specific governing bodies. 0:22:22.960 --> 0:22:25.600 The Amateur Sports Act, which was kind of the impetus 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:30.119 for this, was pasted, and shortly thereafter this group of 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:34.720 community leaders formed the Indiana Sports Corporation nonprofit with the 0:22:34.960 --> 0:22:41.320 mission of attracting both sports feder amateur sports federations and 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:48.440 amateur sports competitions, national championships, you'd have it. 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:51.520 But just because Indianapolis wanted to become a destination for 0:22:51.600 --> 0:22:55.400 amateur sports governing bodies and tournaments didn't guarantee that vision 0:22:55.440 --> 0:22:58.200 would come to life. The city had to construct state 0:22:58.280 --> 0:23:00.600 of the art facilities to become as as that desired, 0:23:00.920 --> 0:23:02.920 the amateur sports capital of the world. 0:23:03.280 --> 0:23:06.760 They also had again to invest in facilities, and so 0:23:06.880 --> 0:23:10.280 they built the Auditorium, They built the Michael Carroll Track 0:23:10.359 --> 0:23:14.200 and Field stateum at Iupoi. They built a velodrome off 0:23:14.240 --> 0:23:17.480 of thirty eighth in cold Spring. They turned Eagle Creek 0:23:17.520 --> 0:23:19.960 into a world class rowing course. 0:23:20.359 --> 0:23:24.000 The investment on those facilities culminated with Indianapolis hosting the 0:23:24.200 --> 0:23:28.000 US National Olympic Festival, a showcase tournament for athletes between 0:23:28.080 --> 0:23:31.879 summer Olympics years, in nineteen eighty two. Later, in nineteen 0:23:31.880 --> 0:23:35.159 eighty seven, Indianapolis hosted the Pan American Games, becoming just 0:23:35.240 --> 0:23:37.680 the second US city to host the tournament, along with 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:41.880 Chicago in nineteen fifty nine. Nowadays, Indianapolis is home base 0:23:42.000 --> 0:23:46.160 for several major amateur sports governing bodies like USA Gymnastics, 0:23:46.359 --> 0:23:50.320