Host Committee Ready for CFP Championship
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The chair of the Indy 2022 College Football Championship Host Committee says the event will serve as the launch of downtown Indianapolis for 2022. After four years of planning, the city is in the midst of final preparations for the big game and the series of events leading up to it. “It actually doesn’t feel like crunch time,” said Mark Howell. “Indianapolis has so much subject matter expertise and experience in putting on these large events and we’ve had such a long runway to prepare for it.”
In an interview with Inside INdiana Business, Howell explained the city’s approach to planning.
“One of the things we did on our host committee – we did it very purposely – was to go identify those people who had been involved in lots of previous events, but we also purposely mixed in a lot of folks who were new,” said Howell. “[We wanted] to bring some new energy, some new creativity and innovation to folks who might not have been overly influenced by things we had done in the past, and [also] to continue to increase our bench strength with knowledge transfer. So, as we get more and more championship events, we’ve got more and more people who can bring previous event experience to those.”
Crews continue to transform downtown Indianapolis into a “championship campus” involving Lucas Oil Stadium, the Indiana Convention Center, White River State Park, Georgia Street, Gainbridge Fieldhouse and Monument Circle.
“The teams are working 24/7 right now to make sure when the curtain goes up Friday afternoon that we’re ready to put on a big show,” said Howell.
The four-day event is expected to generate about $150 million in economic impact for Indianapolis. Howell says that impact will be more than just supporting hotels and restaurants.
“We have more than 100 vendors who have come to our city to create this championship campus and there are lots of Hoosiers who have been put to work as a result of building this out,” he said. “This is also an event that’s going to be seen by tens of millions of people around the world and our city is going to be shown so well.”
This will be the first time the CFP National Championship will be held in a “cold weather” city and Howell says they are fully prepared for cold weather and the potential for snow.
“Knowing that we were putting on an event in a cold weather city, we’ve actually leaned into that,” he said. “The way that the activations are set up, warming stations, we are going to ensure that people have opportunities to be outside, to be comfortable outside and to participate in all of our activations.”
Howell says public safety and especially public health has been the host committee’s primary concern due to the pandemic. He says the committee is encouraging attendees to be vaccinated and stay home if they are experiencing any type of symptoms.
“The majority of the events leading up to the game are taking place outdoors. We’re encouraging testing and masking for those people who are going to be participating in events indoors. Really, between the Indiana State Department of Health and the Marion County Health Department, we’ve worked very, very closely with them to ensure that we put the fans who are visiting out city in the best possible position to be safe.”
The 2022 CFP National Championship game will feature No. 3 Georgia facing No. 1 Alabama on Monday night at Lucas Oil Stadium.