SBJ Football: Indy remains attractive spot for Combine

The food pantry where my dad volunteers has secured three silent-auction items of interest to sports biz folks: A Joe Burrow Foundation football autographed by Burrow, two Blue Jackets tickets and four tickets to a Guardians-Pirates game.

I’m eager to see the winning bids. Marietta, Ohio, is smack in the middle of those four major-league cities, and the sports allegiances have shifted around over the years.

Read on for more on the business of the NFL Combine, New Orleans hotel rates and Minnesota’s Purple People Pleasers.

It’s been four years since the NFL first put hosting rights out to bid for the annual Scouting Combine, and longtime host Indianapolis has held on to it so far, with rights at least through 2026.

It’s not that other cities aren’t interested. They are. But coaches, GMs, players and agents love Indy, and so far, no other team, local sports commission or NFL strategist has effectively made a case that the business upside of taking it on the road would outweigh the operational downside.

The Colts’ Lucas Oil Field in downtown Indianapolis is perfectly situated for the substantive work of evaluating prospects, with medical facilities and hotels essentially next door. It’s also an easy flight for most of the league.

Football leadership normally doesn’t hold much sway with owners when the latter senses a big payday (see “Thursday Night Football”). But that’s not the case with the Combine. Moving it would surely generate some interest in a new market, but the economic ceiling appears to be low, sources said. “I don’t think the cost-benefit is there for owners to upset their GMs,” said one insider.

People I spoke with highlighted several reasons for it: The fitness drills are boring to all but the most diehard fans. No actual decisions come at the Combine, so there’s no high-stakes moment to build around. It’s just three weeks after the Super Bowl, and even NFL enthusiasts on major corporate marketing teams need a break. And finally, unlike the Draft -- which is almost entirely a blank slate for marketers -- the Combine is actually a dense schedule of drills and meetings.

Despite recent efforts to promote the Combine, it pales in comparison to the league’s true offseason tentpole, the NFL Draft. About 27,200 people attended the Combine Experience in 2024; more than 775,000 attended the Draft two months later in Detroit.

On TV, the Combine averaged 224,000 viewers compared to 5.7 million for the Draft. The NFL’s sponsorship division pitches league sponsors on assets at the Combine and activating in Indianapolis, but most feel their effort is best spent on the Super Bowl and the Draft, and most key sponsors’ execs and league business execs don’t attend. There are exceptions. Microsoft CoPilot is the presenting sponsor to this year’s event, Feb. 27-March 2. New Era is the official outfitter; Amazon Web Services hosts some events there.

One source speculated the Combine would only leave Indianapolis if a single city or sponsor overpaid to bring it to a strategic location. For instance, imagine Nike hosting the Combine in Portland, or Under Armour bringing it to the IMG Academy in Florida. Or, things could change if the Combine were redefined into more of a ceremonial act altogether, with the substantive evaluation of prospects occurring in another context.

NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said: “Our focus is on staging a successful Combine in Indianapolis next week and in 2026. There are a number of markets interested in exploring hosting the event.”

Call them the Purple People Pleasers.

The Vikings and U.S. Bank Stadium have enjoyed a sterling reputation for the fan experience since the venue opened nine years ago, but they hit a new high-water mark this season.

The Vikings registered the highest score ever in the “overall” category on the NFL’s “Voice of the Fan” customer satisfaction results, given to every game attendee. “The league told us that,” said Vikings COO Andrew Miller. “I don’t think that’s something we were aware of. It’s something that’s truly exceptional.”

Breaking it down by category, the Vikings were No. 1 out of 32 teams in game entertainment (music, video board programming, fan participation rituals, etc.), second in game-day staff, third in departure, fifth in arrival (ingress), fifth in food & beverage, sixth in security, ninth in stadium tech and 12th in mobile ticketing.

Their ranking in F&B is their highest yet, which Miller ascribed to a “complete reimagining” of concessions in the past few years alongside Aramark.

The strong overall results are a reflection of the high-end stadium staff too, which ranked in the top three in the NFL across every subcategory: food and beverage, gate entry, guest services, parking lot and security.

Miller also highlighted the team’s No. 1 ranking in the “family friendly” sub-category beneath the “game entertainment” score. “For us, it’s really important. It’s something we’re not only proud of, but it’s something our fans are looking for.”

The 49ers are in the market hoping to sell a 10% stake, Bloomberg reported yesterday, marking another high-revenue team that could set a new valuation record.

The 49ers’ effort has been underway for months, but my sources say to use caution when hearing about other LP sales efforts on the rumor mill. Upwards of half the NFL’s majority owners have taken meetings on the new private equity option, they say, but far fewer are certain they will proceed or are necessarily doing anything more than gathering information.

This won’t be a surprise to anyone who booked travel at the Super Bowl, but New Orleans hotel prices were sky high that weekend, my colleague David Broughton reports.

CoStar data says in the city’s Central Business District/French Quarter submarket, the average daily room rate on Feb. 7-8 (the two nights before the game) was just shy of $1,000, with an occupancy of 97.4%. Nearly half the hotels in the submarket averaged over $500, the data reports.

Overall, New Orleans’ roughly 43,000 hotel rooms had an average daily rate of $807, which was up 142% year-over-year, at an occupancy of 92.9%. If that year-over-year growth rate seems lower than you might expect, recall that the equivalent weekend in 2024 was just a few days before Mardi Gras.

That 142% is still a big boost by the Super Bowl’s historical standards, the third highest on record behind Las Vegas last year (167%) and Indianapolis in 2012 (143%).

• In December, the NFL told us the capacity for Super Bowl LIX would be about 62,000, citing more “seat kills” than usual in the 70,000-seat Caesars Superdome (partly due to its age). But then on Super Sunday, the announced attendance was 65,719. What’s up? Here’s the explanation from an NFL spokeswoman: “Over the months leading into Super Bowl, we regularly assess all of our seat kills that are tied to operational needs, camera positions, etc., and work to identify areas of opportunity to open up more capacity, whether that be reducing the kills number further or selling standing room tickets in the suites as two examples. That work extends all the way up until the weekend of the game.”
• As the NFL’s international strategy transitions from its childhood to adolescence, teams, the NFLPA and league business partners still hold considerable angst about going abroad at the increasing pace now being set by Head of NFL International Gerrit Meier, his bosses and the owners.
• In addition to the 2025 NFL Draft being held at Lambeau Field in late April, TitletownTech, the VC firm jointly backed by the Packers and Microsoft, will host a “TitletownTech Startup Draft” in conjunction with the league event. The winner will be awarded a $1 million investment.
• The NFL sponsorship categories being eyed by league reps for expansion: Anything luxury, from a broad perspective, writes my colleague Terry Lefton. That could mean anything from fashion to luxury autos, or watches (timepiece brand Breitling has been an NFL licensee since 2016). Health and wellness is another broad category being looked at by league marketers (Cigna has been the league’s health insurance sponsor since 2019, but now the NFL is thinking more broadly there). A pharma deal is a possibility. There also hasn’t been an NFL official airline since Southwest flew away in 2007.
• The Colts and Fanatics will begin integrating their loyalty programs this offseason, an inflection point in Fanatics founder Michael Rubin’s vision of creating an all-in-one fan experience app.