Indianapolis–City officials announced last week that Indianapolis will bid to host the 2012 Super Bowl. This is the second time in two years the city has cast its hat into the Super Bowl ring. Last year Indy put forth a stellar bid package, but despite its great logistics, big event experience and strong private sector financial support, Indy narrowly missed winning the nod to host the 2011 game.
So this year Indianapolis is pulling out all the stops, including the first ever 2.0-style Super Bowl Bid Website designed to engage the entire central Indiana community in the bidding process.
Watch this video and you’ll get a sense of Indy’s experience hosting big events like the Indy 500, Brickyard 400, NCAA Final Four, Pan Am Games, U.S. Gymnastics, Track & Field and Swimming championships. Indianapolis has this stuff down cold.
It should be noted that behind every one of these events is a city that makes hotel rooms, public safety, entertainment and all the other important facets of big events work. The 2012 game would be played in a state-of-the-art Lucas Oil Stadium, which is set to open in 2008.
Did you know that the NCAA moved its HQ to Indy a few years back, making the city the undisputed amateur sports capital of the world?
But winning the Super Bowl to a cold weather city defies logic, so Indy’s leaders are looking to tap the community’s HIVE MIND to find more ways to influence NFL owners. The bid Website is becoming the community catalyst for both ideas and action. The site will include two blogs, one authored by a collection of city leaders and one written by the community. In addition, the site strategy team has built an affiliate network of local online forums and community sites. It is seeding questions into these forums and thereby distributing the conversation across the local web. The bid site aggregates excerpts from those conversations and offer links to them as well. So far hundreds of local citizens have engaged.
Truly it’s not just Indy’s leaders who want the game to come here. The citizens of central Indiana are inspired and engaged in the process as well. The overall strategy of the bid Web site is to demonstrate to NFL officials that Indy is “sold out” for the Super Bowl.
Officials are confident the strategy will help Indy succeed in its bid and will continue adding new wrinkles over time as the bid deadline approaches. After Indy wins the bid, the Website will be used to keep the conversation going and to activate volunteers.
Very cool! Thanks for sharing
Do you know what other Web 2.0 tools Indy used to get the bid? I have been studying social media in my advanced public relations writing course at the University of Oregon, so I am wondering what Web 2.0 tactics were used.
WE didn’t win it yet. We’re just getting started. Watch the site for more 2.0 stuff!
Let’s hope the strategy helps in winning the bid, but I think only that will not be enough.