Super Bowl 2012 Tickets: Expensive and Rare

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Lucas Oil Stadium will hold roughly 63,000 spectators for the Super Bowl in 2012. The host-city Indianapolis Colts will receive about 5 percent of the available tickets, or about 3,600, the Associated Press has reported.

The teams that make it to the Super Bowl each will receive about 17 percent of the tickets. The NFL takes 25 percent, and the rest hit the open market.

The face value on the seats is expected to be about $1,000 apiece, though seats already are selling for much more on the secondary market through various ticket brokers and sports travel outfits.

Prices on the secondary market range between about $2,400 per seat for the most remote tickets, all the way up to more than $12,000 for prime seats with a great view of the action. At this point, the tickets fall within specified zones since the NFL has not yet released actual seat locations.

The 2012 Super Bowl is scheduled to kick off at 5:15 p.m. on Sunday, February 5, at Lucas Oil Stadium in downtown Indianapolis.

Downtown Interstate Ramp Getting a Super Bowl Rebranding

The state is planning changes to a busy downtown interchange on I-70 in preparation for the Super Bowl in 2012. Signs on the highway will rebrand the McCarty Street exit as a Meridian Street exit. From the Indianapolis Star:

One of the more confusing exits leading to Downtown Indianapolis is getting a makeover starting tonight, and you can thank 2012 Super Bowl for helping straighten things out.

Starting tonight -- weather permitting -- the Indiana Department of Transportation and Indianapolis Department of Public Works crews will begin installing new signs along Interstate 70 so that Exit 79B points towards Meridian Street, instead of McCarty Street.

McCarty is an east-west street, while Meridian runs north-south and would take visitors to nightclubs, places to eat and, of course, Lucas Oil Stadium and related attractions.

Access to the roads won't change -- just the directional signs.

The full story is here.

IBJ: City Hopes to Host Super Bowl Again After 2012 Game

IBJ's Anthony Schoettle has an interview with the CEO of Indy's Super Bowl host committee. She's hoping the game helps convince NFL owners of the city's ability to host the big game again in the future. The full story and video is here.

Airline Magazine Showcases Indianapolis

The magazine of Southwest Airlines, Spirit, has an extensive spread this month that's all about Indianapolis. City officials hope the national attention for the city helps build buzz around Super Bowl 2012 at Lucas Oil Stadium. Here are links to each of the stories from Spirit magazine:

Ten Ways to Enjoy the Crossroads of America

Indianapolis has created its own sports paradise

Voices of Indy

Economic Engines

Super Bowl Host Committee Hires Veteran Executive

An Indiana native who helped plan four Republican National Conventions will help coordinate plans for the 2012 Super Bowl in Indianapolis. The 2012 Indianapolis Super Bowl Host Committee has appointed Michelle Raines as vice president of event operations, IBJ reported. The full story is here.

Get Excited About 2012 (the movie)

There's been a lot of talk about the significance of the year 2012 and not just because Indianapolis is hosting the 2012 Super Bowl. Now buzz is growing around a new movie called 2012 from the director of Independence Day. Sony Pictures is spending $4 million to air a movie trailer simultaneously on more than 90 broadcast networks the evening of Oct. 1, giving it an audience larger than the Super Bowl. The movie hits theaters Nov. 13.



More about the ad buy is here.

Three More Years

Who Will Host Super Bowl 2013: New Orleans, Glendale, Arizona or South Florida?

The NFL is scheduled to name the host of the 2013 Super Bowl on Tuesday, May 19 at the league meetings in Fort Lauderdale. New Orleans, which has hosted the game nine times in the past, most recently in 2002, is believed to be the favorite ahead of South Florida and Glendale, Ariz. Miami is slated to host the big game for its 10th time in 2010. Details on the New Orleans bid can be found here. More on the Glendale bid is here. Glendale hosted the game in 1998 and 2008. More on the upcoming vote is here.

UPDATE: New Orleans has been awarded the 2013 Super Bowl.

A Super Bowl in London?

The NFL apparently is considering a Super Bowl outside the U.S., which would be a first for the league. The Sunday Telegraph has reported that the NFL has promised officials in London that their city will host the Super Bowl as early as 2014.

An announcement is expected at some point in the next year. The game would be played at Wembley Stadium, which will host New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers for a game next season and also hosted an NFL game last year. London will be hosting the Summer Olympics in 2012.

The full story is here.

The Sound of (Free-Agency) Silence

Columnist John Oehser, who writes a blog at IndyFootballReport.com, says the Colts' silence as the NFL's free-agency period began last week is good news for fans. Oehser covered the team for Colts.com for eight years before his position was eliminated earlier this year. Now he's struck out on his own. He writes:

The Colts under Polian have stayed away from free agency – the type in which you sign other people's players, anyway. Other people's players typically mean other people's problems, and Polian and the Colts long have believed re-signing their own players – drafting and keeping a core of players whose talents they know and whose personalities they trust – is the way to consistent, long-term success.

Do you agree? You can read Oehser's entire column here.

Hoosier Brothers Win $1M for Their Doritos Super Bowl Ad

Indiana brothers David and Joe Herbert filmed the popular Doritos "Crystal Ball" commercial at the YMCA in Batesville. They spent just $2,000 on the ad, with their biggest expenses going toward food for the cast and crew and a vending machine they picked up for $400 on eBay. For their trouble, the brothers won $25,000 from Frito-Lay and a bonus $1 million after the ad won top billing for Super Bowl ads from USA Today's Ad Meter.



You can see them talk about the commercial in an interview here.

Will Madden Host the 2012 Super Bowl?

The New York Daily News has a great story on the 72-year-old NFL icon John Madden, who just hosted his 11th Super Bowl. He has added color commentary for Super Bowls on all four major networks over the years. The question from columnist Bob Raissman: Will he be back to host the next time NBC has the big game, in 2012 in Indianapolis? Madden hopes so. "Working with Al (Michaels) has been very, very enjoyable. This is our third one," he told Raissman. "And four sounds pretty good." The full story is here.

Columnist Calls 2006 Super Bowl 'Worst Ever'

In a column this week, ESPN's Sal Paolantonio describes the 2006 Super Bowl as a "washed out disappointment" between two teams that failed to live up to their high expectations. He argues that it is Rex Grossman's horrible performance that's most responsible for Tony Dungy and Peyton Manning securing their place in NFL history.

It was a washed-out disappointment between two football teams that came into the game with very high expectations and -- in most cases on both sides of the ball -- could not have lived them down any worse.

The conventional wisdom is that the Colts of Super Bowl XLI were not the worst Colts team in a Super Bowl, that the Colts of the 1970 season were much worse. Well, that's exactly the point. Not much was expected from the 1970 team. Not true of Manning's Colts. Not true of Manning.

The full column is here. Thoughts?

Budweiser and its Clydesdales Have a Lock on Super Bowl Ads Through 2012 in Indy

The iconic Budweiser Clydesdales are slated to appear in three of the brewer's seven Super Bowl ads this year, as the company continues its lock on alcoholic-beverage advertising during the Super Bowl, the Associated Press reports. Budweiser has exclusive rights to the ads through 2012, when the Super Bowl makes its stop in Indianapolis.

Ads from Anheuser-Busch are among the most anticipated during the Super Bowl, an event watched as much for the ads during the commercial breaks as for the sport. The company has a lock on the ads, with exclusive rights in the alcoholic beverage segment through 2012.
This year's slate includes seven spots — two lasting 60 seconds and five that will be 30 seconds long. That's a total of 4.5 minutes of advertising, up from last year's 4 minutes.
Although Anheuser-Busch is under new ownership, its beloved Super Bowl advertising — which dates back three decades — hasn't changed.
The ads feature the Clydesdales in several situations: a romance with a circus horse, a particularly competitive game of fetch and a portrayal of the history of Clydesdales and how they came to the U.S.

The full story is available here.

Dungy Retirement Announcement Expected

Indianapolis Colts Coach Tony Dungy is expected to announce his retirement this evening after seven years as the head coach of the Colts. A press conference has been scheduled for 5 p.m. and several media outlets are reporting he will announce he is leaving. Assistant Coach Jim Caldwell is expected to be named as Dungy's replacement. You can read more at IBJ's The Score blog here. Here's a taste:

Caldwell, who has been an assistant with Indianapolis for seven seasons, started his coaching career in the college ranks. He spent seven seasons under Joe Paterno at Penn State, where he was credited for making Kerry Collins NFL-ready. Caldwell has shown he can work with players—even when they’re not destined for the Hall of Fame. As a Tampa Bay assistant, Caldwell was credited for revving the QB-receiver tandem of Brad Johnson and Keyshawn Johnson.

Your Take: Time for Dungy to Go?

In his column, the Indianapolis Star's Bob Kravitz says its time for Tony Dungy to move on. The full column is here.

Listen, nobody is kicking Dungy's backside out the door. Nobody is packing his bags for him. But sometimes, well, you just know it's time. And the Colts have reached a point where they need to know that their coach is in it for the long run and is not an eternal year-by-year proposition.

Do you agree?