Published: July 26, 2008 08:44 pm            

Mark Bennett: Indiana needs Colts to continue winning ways

You hate to heap too much pressure on the Indianapolis Colts, especially with training camp just getting started here in Terre Haute.

But Indiana needs them to win this season and the next, and the next, and …

This is no time for the Colts’ winning ways to stall. In a best-case scenario, injuries to stars Peyton Manning, Marvin Harrison, Dwight Freeney and Bob Sanders heal quickly and fully; the ideal NFL head coach, Tony Dungy, fights the urge to pursue other opportunities and stays on the Colts’ sidelines; and team president Bill Polian, 65, keeps drafting masterfully and decides to remain with Indianapolis once his current contract ends after 2011.

Still, the image of Manning watching camp 2008, instead of guiding it, conjures worrisome questions about the future. For longtime fans, there are two Indianapolis Colts eras — before Peyton, and with Peyton. A precision passer with an Einstein-caliber football IQ and a work ethic like an Amish carpenter, Manning has made the days of Art Schlichter seem prehistoric. For a decade, he’s not missed a start. Yet, as much as they’d like to see him last longer than George Blanda, those veteran fans will someday experience the Colts’ after-Peyton period.

Let’s hope that chapter begins long after 2008.

There’s a lot riding on this season. The gleaming, new Lucas Oil Stadium will be unveiled. It’s a $715-million structure, financed jointly by the state, the city of Indianapolis, Marion County and the Colts. The value of its occupants, the Colts, was an estimated $911 million, according to Forbes magazine’s 2007 “NFL Team Valuations” report, and that calculation was based on 2006 when they played in the less-lucrative RCA Dome. Fans will pay $34 to $270 per seat to watch them, and there’s a waiting list for season tickets, club seats and luxury suites. Thousands sitting in their Lucas Oil seats will wear $200 replica jerseys, and buy beer, sodas, pizza and hot dogs. Those who’ll watch at home might invest in DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket package, inspired by its commercials featuring Manning.

What happens if the Colts go in the tank this season? What happens when Peyton hangs up his cleats, Dungy leaves coaching, and Polian retires?

Will our new-found label as a “football state” still stick? Will Lucas Oil Stadium still be a tough ticket?

Rather than just a peak in the Colts’ 24-year Indianapolis history, the current healthy era more likely signals an arrival by the franchise, said Larry DeGaris, director of academic sports marketing programs at the University of Indianapolis. The team, once seen as a transplant from Baltimore, now breathes some of the same rarefied air of pro sports most venerable organizations. Like Chicago Cubs or Green Bay Packers backers, Colts fans won’t abandon the team if it struggles during an upcoming season.

“The Colts have attained cultural icon status in Indiana. The fans would be understanding of a three- or four-win year,” DeGaris said, “as long as it didn’t happen year after year.”

Of course, there was a time when it happened regularly. The Colts won 12 games total in their first three Indy seasons, and won 16 from 1989-91. But the change in fortunes that began after Manning’s debut in 1998 most likely have become institutionalized, DeGaris said.

“I don’t think we’re ever going back to the years when John Elway refused to play here, and Eric Dickerson sat out and refused to play,” DeGaris said.

That seems like a lifetime ago, now.

DeGaris also praised the Colts’ handling of the transition from the RCA Dome to Lucas Oil Stadium, by keeping ticket costs and seating approachable for loyal fans in the wake of Indianapolis’ victory in Super Bowl XLI. The club kept the long-run in view.

“Strong brands are resistant to temporary lapses in performance,” he said.

The Cincinnati Bengals are a prime example, DeGaris said. Since 1990, the Bengals have won just 106 games, and lost 182. Yet the club’s value is $912 million, according to that same Forbes report — 20th in the NFL, one notch above the Colts. Cincy NFL fans, for the most part, have shown up, no matter how awful the Bengals played. Same goes for the Cubs and the Packers.

Nonetheless, the outset of the Lucas Oil Stadium era would not be a good time to test Indiana’s fledgling “football state” status. DeGaris sees a stronger, capable Colts marketing and sales staff prepared to keep the new building’s 63,000 seats full. The waiting list for regular and premium seats is a good omen, and the NFL’s highly profitable TV revenue-sharing income helps buffer in down seasons, he added. They’ve made all the right moves in a small market to keep the momentum.

Plus, this is the NFL, not the NBA. Pro basketball teams thrive and wither based on their individual stars. The Indiana Pacers have struggled to resume life without Reggie Miller. In the NFL, players come and go, even the stars. “When Peyton Manning is done, then somebody else will come in, and maybe that somebody else will win a Super Bowl.”

Maybe.

Still, DeGaris acknowledged, the Colts aren’t impervious to future on-field and, thus, financial tailspins. “You never say never,” he said.

Indeed, anyone who watched the Colts in 1991 would never have dreamed the franchise would someday win a Super Bowl.

Mark Bennett can be reached at mark.bennett@tribstar.com or (812) 231-4377.

        

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