our opportunity in its largest context. We are doing some amazing things that we would not have competed for in the past. Chase down curiosity. Be curious about what's going on in your community. And you're facing issues today that were not a conversation a decade ago. If you're not willing to do the work, you will not get asked again.
That's the reality. I think a lot of young people want to be asked. They just don't want to do the work. Why should people take sports seriously as the business? And what kind of economic impact does it have on the state of Indiana? From South Bend to Evansville and everywhere in between, this is Get In, the show focused on the Hooser State and the incredible stories happening here today.
I'm Nate Spangle, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for today's conversation. If you're looking for a great Indiana getaway that doesn't require a long drive or a big plan, Boon County is worth your time. Zansville's iconic brick Main Street is one of the most charming streets in the entire state. It's lined with local boutiques, great food, and that small town feel that's hard to find anymore. If you're into the outdoors, the Big Four Rail Trail and Stone Eater Bike Park give you plenty to explore. And if you want something unique, polo matches at the Hickory Hall Polo Club are an experience you won't forget.
That's a lot packed into one county. Start planning your trip at discover boomcount. com. Now, let's get into the episode. When Indiana lands a major event, attracts investment, or elevates its national profile, there's often a larger story happening behind the scenes. Danny Lopez has spent his career at the center of those conversations, helping connect public policy, economic development, and the business of sports to create opportunities across the Hooser State.
He's the CEO and president of Vincam public relations, and state rep for district 39. I'm really excited. Today, we're going to dive into how sports is a driver of economic development in Indiana, the business behind the big events that happen all across the state, and why Indiana's best days are ahead of us. Danny, welcome to the show. Thank you, Nate. Man, this is a long time coming.
Uh we have a ton of uh I would say mutual friends, a lot of my mentors have just said, "Man, Danny Lopez is a heck of a guy, and you've done some incredible work largely around sport here in the state of Indiana, uh in Indianapolis as well. And I'm super excited to dive into this journey. But like 2 minutes before we started recording, I learned you're a Hooser by choice." I am. From the from the sunny beaches of South Florida. How in the heck did you end up in the Circle City?
Yeah, thanks Nate. Thanks for having me and and engaging this conversation. You're right. I've talked to so many of our mutual friends who have said the same thing like Nate's doing crazy stuff here and it's fantastic and it's a great podcast and we should connect. So, I appreciate the opportunity. Um, yeah, my wife and I are both from Miami.
We moved up here in 2008. My wife, uh, who's a Gator had studied, uh, up here, done her masters up here in speech pathology. And so I had a Spanish language media firm in Miami with a partner of mine and uh and she was a practicing speech pathologist and um you know around 2007 seven I'd say the end of 2007 we started talking about her potentially coming back to do her doctorate and so for me I had I have a masters in sports marketing. I was coaching some men's basketball at Jo and in the high schools in Miami and that's a whole other crazy story but I was kind of ready to get out of politics. I said, you know, I I had been in politics uh on the consultant side and down in Florida in in Miami. We had some we had an incredible run.
I had a fantastic partner who's my best buddy uh in the world. And so we got to grow a firm and it was just a really cool experience. But I was ready to go work for the NCAA or IU athletics or whatever. How did the NCAA or how did IU athletics end up on the Because Sophia was looking to come back and do her doctor and I said, "Well, yeah, let's go." she do uh her masters here at So you got uh exposure to Indiana through that. And by the way, this is like I mean we're going sort of all we can get all over the place if you want to go down a rabbit hole, but the reality is this is why we have to talk about our universities as drivers of talent of you know a piece of the economic development puzzle.
I know it's sort of invoked challenge the um you know the the value equation of higher education and we spend a lot of time sort of beating up our universities but the truth is that uh there wasn't a conversation when I was working at the state there wasn't a conversation when we were considering moving here that wasn't centered around a a major R1 university and all that you know energy and and talent attraction that that it drives and that's what brought us here. We're we're a product of that. Yeah. And I mean you talk about I mean there is oh my gosh we've had so many conversations around how many students or new people we import for their four-year degree to or their you know doctorate the I mean there's so many yeah you say R1 universities but also just like you know I went to DEPA like how many people come from the Illinois the Ohio the Missouri from St. Louis, you know, spend four years in Indiana and then pick up their lives and largely go back to wherever they were.
And how do you get them plugged into opportunities across Indiana? I mean, it's an interesting thing because we've talked about what the strategy is there. There's different perspectives on this. This this is the way I look at it having, you know, you and I were talking before having a a little bit of a different perspective when you come from someplace else, particularly someplace that's Miami that's just so different, right? Probably so different than anywhere else in the United States. To me, if a kid is graduating from our and and you're right, we have an incredible network of big little public private universities that's really on on par with any in the country, any state in the country, which is really an amazing thing.
But if if you're a kid that has graduated from one of these high demand programs, and a a company on the coast is coming and and offering big money and and wanting to move you or whatever, look, most of the kids are are going to jump or at least seriously consider those opportunities. And I think that's okay. I think it's fine if kids are going to the coast or going to other places and getting new perspectives and meeting different kinds of people and experiencing life that's different from Indiana as long as we have a mechanism to rebound those kids and bring them back when they're 28, 29, 30 and they start thinking about what else life has and what they really value in their life and start thinking about their families and being closer to home. That's when I think we've got to have um a a real tool resources behind it. um and an and an effort a strategic effort around boomeranging those kids back and bringing them back to our communities.
And I think that's really the the um better expenditure of of time and treasure. And we can be successful. And by the way, we're winning a lot of those conversations because we're the only state in the Midwest that's growing population. I mean, we we we grew consistently about 30,000 people over the last several years. Now, that slowed a little bit, but just a couple years ago, we were number seven in the country in growth, total net immigration, right? So, we're losing some folks on the front end, but we're gaining a lot of folks far more than our contiguous states.
Um, and that's a big deal. That's a story that's worth worthy of being told. And it's not just central Indiana. So, people say, "Well, you know, Hamilton County is growing or Marian County attracts some people because of the industries." The truth is, you're seeing that growth in Lafayette, you're seeing that growth in Marville up in Lake County for folks that are fleeing Illinois and coming over and and landing in Lake County or Marville. Isn't it like though nine counties or something?
I don't know the exact number, but like all of the growth is happening in a relatively small amount of counties. The donuts, the donuts of Indiana, I would assume Monroe County where Bloomington is and I would assume Lafayette and I would and then also uh like you know the region maybe South Bend, but that's but that's not that that much different than any other state. I mean, you're going to have your high population centers. Um, but you're right, as a matter of public policy, we've, you know, one of the things we work on talking about taxation and other things is how you create mechanisms where, you know, the majority of our counties can benefit because if you have I I I don't remember exactly what the number is, but I think it's like 52 of our counties that have lower population now than they did in 1970. Well, that's a problem. You do have uh counties that are certainly declining population at a heavy rate, and you got to have strategies to do that.
But I don't think it's probably unique that you've got a small number, a smaller number of population centers that are really your magnets and particularly with the populations that we are talking about here in some of these conversations. You know, high talent individuals, people that are being drawn by the opportunity to work for Cumins or Lily or Ro or Rathon, they're going to want to be in places where those um those offices are located, obviously, and those are they're they also want to be located near amenities. I mean, we we live in in Caramel. We we love life in Caramel. We love life in in Hamilton County generally. What age did you move to the suburbs?
So we moved in well we were in Bloomington for five our first 5 years which we loved loved living in Bloomington. Um then we moved up to uh the Whitestown Zansville area because because Sophia did a post-docctorate at Purdue and I was coming down downtown to be in the state house and so we split the difference. Loved that area. Loved Zansville. Loved Main Street. Zansville.
Whitestown was growing. It was fantastic. We've been in Carmel since 2016 and it's fantastic. I mean, the fact is we're in the library every weekend. My kid, you know, my son is on the library council. I hear that the library, the Caramel Library specifically, is like out of this world.
It's the gold standard. My mom's a librarian. My mom I grew up in a library household, so I grew up in libraries. My mom was a public school librarian and a public librarian in Miami. She comes and she looks at it's like the Taj Mahal of libraries. It's awesome.
Big Dewey decimal guy. Yeah, I am actually. There you That's. That's what I said. Like what's crazy like libraries I feel like though are getting less and less books and more and more other crazy cool things. Like you could legitimately start the business that we have today.
You could get it started from the Caramel Public Library. Like they have that whole podcast studio you can rent out for free. You could start interviewing like local people around Caramel or getting them to drive in meet you at this crazy library. There's like Java House coffee bar. Like you could I mean not saying that our coffee here from the curig is not very good but like you could create a whole business out of the caramel library. It's awesome for it's awesome.
So what I want to know you from Bloomington you're up on like kind of the northwest side. Where in your journey becoming a Hooser did you really feel like this was home? Oh man. So I mean we were we had an event last night uh with former Governor Hulcom and and uh we were talking about this a little bit. So I met him uh in 2009. And I got introduced to him from somebody in Florida.
And uh somebody in Florida introduced you. Yeah. Cuz we had done work for the governor, then governor in Florida. And so when I moved up here, I had some mutual contacts and they said, "Well, there's this guy and he works for Mitch Daniels and I was learning about Mitch Daniels and he he said, you know, you should reach out to him." So I did and we met at a place I think it's still there but downtown called Ralph's Great Divide and had peas and carrots. Everybody loves Ralph's Great Divide.
Yeah. And had some peas and carrots. And I remember thinking, man, this guy is like this infectious personality and he's so passionate about this guy he works for, Mitch Daniels, and he's so passionate about the cause of kind of revitalizing the state and taking the state in another direction. And then I started to meet all the all the people in in Mitch world. And it it was hard not to get uh not to get infected with that with that passion. And here's a guy in, you know, for me with a transplant, moved here, had very few uh relationships, lived in a different city.
And at that time, you know, those guys pulled you into the cause. And because they were growing the coalition, they wanted to broaden the base. They wanted to grow coalitions. They wanted to pull young people in. And as the two prerequisites were, do you want to make the state better? And are you willing to work for it?
And if you are, we're going to give you a seat at the table and you don't have to ask. And so they just put you to work. And uh so everything from being involved sort of like in party stuff to just making introductions outside of political things to to things like the Super Bowl uh committee or, you know, just things where I could be involved. And when you start throwing yourself, if you're willing to throw yourself into these things, you get hooked, right? You you you learn the the the best of the state, right? And you sort of get adopted into the culture.
And that's what happened with me is um we got we got inundated. We got thrown. I developed all these relationships and then all of a sudden you're in and you're like, man, this is really a great place to be. Like that is the cool piece. uh you talk about, you know, graduating from whatever your your college or university, wherever it might be, going south or east or west to a coast to you grow a career, get your whatever kind of experience. I do think the superpower of the state of Indiana and the superpower of the city of Indianapolis is if you're driven by impact and you want to go make a difference, there's you're there's plenty of opportunity where people won't say just wait your turn.
That's 100% true. 100%. even you know whether it was 10 years ago whether it's today if you go out there with the right I mean get now like our voice my voice like this whole organization it matters two years after we started it and it wasn't ever anyone saying you should do this but no one was saying no and guests were coming on when we were first starting out we got like Alison Barber and we got Doug BS in here there wasn't even anything on the walls and we had like two desks out there but like we were reaching an audience and talking about something and no one ever said stop and they were willing to, you know, help out and saw that we were focused on making an impact. Yeah. And the and the cost of being at the table here is is nothing compared to what it is at other places. That's just the reality.
And I think if you're not from here, sometimes you or if you don't leave ever, you you sort of take that for granted. But we had people here. I mean, look, I spent a large part of my career working for people like Earl Good and Jim Morris. Morris used to early in my career, Morris used to just say, "Do you know soand so?" And I'd say, "No." And they'd say, "Oh."
and he'd say, "I'm going to connect you." And he would he would actually follow through and he'd connect you. He'd write a note. He'd get me connected up with somebody. And those people responded because it was Jim making the ask. And all of a sudden, that helped me expand my network.
And those people always said, "There's something for you to do. So, get involved. We're going to pull you in." And again, I think I think when, you know, when I talk to to younger professionals or folks that are in college, I do a lot of the speaking, right? I get I get called in to speak to classes or leadership um organizations or whatever. What I tell younger me sitting in those classrooms is if you are asked and you don't produce or you're not willing to do the work, you will not get asked again.
That's the reality. If you're willing to work, people will continue to leverage you and give you more responsibility. You're going to continue to get asked. I think a lot of young people uh want to be asked. They just don't want to do the work. And if you're not willing to do the work, it tails off.
Like people figure that out pretty quickly that you're just it's cosmetic. It's not real. It's performative. But if you're willing to step up and actually roll up your sleeves and like put in the time, you will get called back time and time and time again. And then you're all of a sudden in the middle of some really really cool things that are happening here. Yeah, that's been uh a lesson for me.
Uh going from being, you know, I was an or fellow when I came to town and I said yes to everything and then it's like you do that for 2 3 4 5 years and it's like okay then a lot of it I don't know where it is but the momentum starts to shift and then you kind of have to be like hey maybe I can't say yes to everything because cuz you want to be able to actually make an impact and you want to be you know intentional. You don't want to get a reputation that it is you know all window dressing you know. So it's like but early on it's like there it's I don't know it's like it's just time like show up shake hands have pass out whatever the thing is work a door volunteer at a sports core event or whatever it might be and and that's the time to do it when you don't have other responsibilities you don't necessarily have children you don't have you know you know my wife I have a very understanding wife she understood that I was getting involved in all these things and so she had her own things going and and I was able to go and do the stuff that I needed to do to be involved um that's the time to do it.
Where did you make the transition from politics into sports? I came back when uh when Lieutenant then Lieutenant Governor Hulcom came back to the state house uh to be lieutenant governor after Sue Ellman transitioned out. I came back as Eric's chief of staff and then when a staff transition and when we made the transition into the big office into 206 then uh I was his deputy chief. So I was Earl's deputy. Earl Good was our chief of staff. I was Earl's deputy um and spent essentially three years as deputy chief to the governor.
When I left there, uh, I I made a a pit stop at a an organization here in town called Strata, which was USA funds, used to be USA funds. So, did a lot of grant making, philanthropy around, um, higher education and and, um, and education technology. And then, uh, found my way to the Pacers. I met uh, Mel, I had known Mel Reigns. Mel was in the political world uh, when I was, we overlapped, so we had known each other a little bit, but we got reconnected. And I met Rick Fusen, and they were in the middle of a reorg.
we were heading into $400 million worth of renovations at the fieldhouse. And so, uh, as they went through that process, they said, "Well, Danny, you know, you there's going to be different roles that pop up. Do you want to come join the team?" And I said, "Absolutely." And so, I spent essentially 5 years, uh, before running for office um, serving in the capacity of of really external affairs. I was our our executive vice president uh, for external affairs and oversaw our government relations and and um, and ultimately our our community work and our philanthropic work.
So um it was a and and including our media. So I was our company spokesman for for the company. So on the corporate side, non- basketball side. So it was a it was a wonderful run. Okay. Talk to me about that.
Like you're coming in there and Yeah. You said spokesperson on the non- basketball side. How much non-basket work is there that revolves around Pacers? Oh man. I mean people don't understand this Nate, but Pacer sports and entertainment really is this umbrella for a lot of different things. So of course you have the Pacers and the Fever.
You also have the boom now up in Noblesville, but we had a G-League team that was in Fort Wayne at the time, uh, the Mad Ants. Um, you have the Pacers Foundation that's embedded in the company. So, you've got this philanthropic piece. Uh, but you also have the the entity that essentially operates Cambridge Fieldhouse, right? So, Gambridge Fieldhouse is city- owned, but we operate it. And so, a lot I mean, there are uh upwards of 200 events, different kinds of events if you if you factor in meetings and other things.
I mean there's 500 different things happening at Gamebridge Fieldhouse every year. There's 2 million people coming through the doors. So it is a busy busy building. It's the most widely used venue in the in the state. And so operating that is really taking takeway is what consumes a lot of time for a lot of the staff. The basketball side operates the basketball and the fever side as well.
And there's shared services that go along with that. But it's really operating the building. And so when you think about like grant making or you think about hosting WWE twice a year or hosting uh different concerts that come through like all that stuff is really the the bread and butter of a lot of what PSN does. Wow. Well, yeah. I mean you talk about from state championships to Yeah.
I mean like was there I mean there's some crazy ones like Disney on Ice, right? Disney on Ice every year for a week. um things like everything from Bochelli to Kiss to you know uh Justin Timberlake to um you know that we're now getting into um uh Spanish language content and and concerts that are fantastic. I mean we're you always doing something different and then the WWE is unique that man I I tell you what I've never seen a production it it's it's such a machine and it's so cool to watch it operate from the inside. really is a really fascinating between that and like the Savannah Bananas like both of those two are just like the performative side of sport is so cool. It is.
Um okay, so serving there like what did the day look like? What what were the big initiatives? you know about 5 years kind of working there as a spokesperson like I mean in that time there's something with Nelly or not Nelly uh who's 50 Cent like you guys had a partnership with 50 Cent he had a boxer like there was just crazy activities happening with Pacers and all the non just non basketball things going on I mean think about this when I got there we uh my first day on the job was the first week of co like the shutdown sick all right so I went in there right so a lot of non- basketball stuff's going on. Yeah. But Yeah. But the thing is, so we we headed right into 3 years of construction, which again at the time at the time was the second largest renovation project in the history of the NBA.
So Madison Square Garden in the early 2010s had been renovated. It was a massive renovation. Um, ours was the second largest in the history of the league. So it was a bottom to top full-on renovation. And then of course the plaza on the outside that you've seen that we've built. Okay.
So huge. That right there consumed so much of my time between en ensuring that we were uh letting the community know what was going on. We were bringing stakeholders in. We were dealing with media. It was just like a all-consuming thing. We were also operating in co uh things like Disney on Ice.
Things like the uh ESPN's tip off college basketball in an empty building. U bringing the teams in here. We had Illinois and West Virginia and Gonzaga um come in and play and it was just different. Right. we were at 2/3 or 1/3 capacity uh for a while there. We had NBA games, the NBA went to the bubble, then the WNBA went to their bubble in Bradon and Florida.
Um, so all those things were sort of happening in year one in including the pandemic, the stuff with George Floyd and and everything that happened around our initiatives with that and then you hear headed into year two and we were now ramping up for All-Star cuz remember All-Star was 21 and then we pushed it to 24 because of co so we ended up in uh in 24 gearing up. It was a seven-year process to do NBA All-Star, which turned out to to be a incredibly impactful uh economic event in the city. NBA All-Star was, but it was also the culmination of Rick Fus's career, right? He had started he had been brought in in 1984 to work on the All-Star game in ' 85 and then this was his retirement in 2024. So, as CEO of the company so there was just a ton of transition that was happening there to Mel Reigns uh and within the company. Uh over that time we drafted Caitlyn Clark, right?
And and this is to say nothing of like, you know, we had things like Elton John, if everybody remembers that, the concert that kind of went a little bit off the rails because again, it was a consequence of construction, a new building, new seating chart, two reschedules, going to digital tickets. We ran into this uh this perfect storm of issues. Well, we had to navigate that in a night, right? And then the ramifications of that over the the the following couple of weeks. Uh it was just it's just an exciting atmosphere. There's something every day there's something happening that has to be dealt with on the corporate side and a lot of people don't appreciate all that goes into that.
Well Andy you're talking about you know the economic drivers of something like an all-star which is a perfect kind of blend of the politics side when you think of economic development and like Indy's just innate love for sport. And so I mean one thing I wanted to dive into was I think a lot of people think of sports and sports teams and events as good quality of life thing, quality of place. You know, it's cool that we get college football playoff or March Madness or it's cool that we have the Pacers. It's cool we have a Colts. But from the business side and from, you know, legislation from people in government, why should people take sports seriously as the business and what kind of economic impact does it have on the state of Indiana? Yeah.
Well, I would argue it's the same reason that we u that we need to be talking about and thinking about and investing in any investments and incentives of this kind. I mean, this is look, the reality is we're in the middle of this debate right now. You've got a lot of people who on both sides of the aisle really who um don't necessarily see the value in some of these investments and I can tell you it is hundreds of millions of dollars of economic impact of jobs, of exposure for the city and the state. Um and and so, yeah, look, you have to structure when you're when you're making policy. Uh it's this stuff is complicated. Tax policy is complicated.
Investment, economic development, investment policy is complicated. You've got to structure these things so that you minimize the risk to the taxpayer. That's our responsibility. But at the same time, the ramifications of not having some of these venues and some of these experiences available are huge. Think about the e economic impact of Super Bowl. Think about the economic impact of both WNBA and NBA Allstars that we hosted.
USA swimming that we hosted. the 10-year deal that the Sports Corp was able to craft because of the bid fund was able to craft with WWE, one WrestleMania at Lucas Oil Stadium, the economic impact of that is enormous, right? And it puts the city on the map. You're either an NFL city or you're not. You're either a, you know, an NBA city or you're not. And so having those amenities is critically important.
And those things don't happen by accident. They happen because policy makers and leaders in the city not just elected policy makers but people who work in this space in the city are have the vision to understand that if you invest against this the city the state uh even the region really does benefit. Well literally talking about the region the biggest topic up for debate right now is okay one it let's say that all things were green and the Bears decide to build their new stadium in Hammond Indiana. There are certain sides of the state uh of the state of Indiana that are like, "Yes, this is amazing, incredible. We'll have two NFL teams." There's another side that says, "Why should we, you know, uh give tax relief to billionaires for their new stadium and yada yada yada there?"
And I'm curious, you know, from the government side, from the sports side, is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? How should Hoosiers be thinking about the new stadium in Hammond? Well, the the first thing is, and this is super important, the first thing is whether we're talking about Lucas Oil Stadium or we're talking about the new build, the new potential new stadium in in Northwest Indiana, the exposure to taxpayers uh broadly at the state out of our general fund is is non-existent. We we we have a line in the general fund for Lucas Oil, let's say, to make sure we're backing those bonds. But who say it's not the the the stadium is going is always funded.
The way we structure our deals is funded by users. So there'll be food and beverage taxes. There'll be ticket taxes potentially on folks that buy tickets that you know use that. There's um inkeepers taxes up there, right? Uh there's the toll road renegotiation. So some money coming off the toll roads uh in northwest Indiana, but that's that's how that's funded.
It's it's funded on users, right? Not through state general funds. So those are dollars that are collected because people are utilizing the facility, coming to the area, staying in hotels, eating in the restaurants. And that's the thing is we, you know, it's it's easy to sort of and and I know this is a broader sort of theme of your show, but it's easy to sort of throw red meat out there. We do that a lot, right? Especially in politics.
We throw a lot of red meat out there. There's a lot of mis misinformation. It's easy to say, "Well, we should never be funding billionaire stadiums or whatever." The reality is that if we can create deals that minimize risk to our taxpayers uh and don't put our general fund on the hook, but uh but do it in a way instead that it's paid for by the people who use that facility, that particular facility. That's a home run. And by the way, one Super Bowl there, the economic impact of that is uh is just enormous.
Enormous for the state, not just for the region, really for the state. And that's how I choose to look at economic investment and economic incentives. We we spent a little time, Nate, out at Leap yesterday. Yeah. Okay. In Lebanon.
It's like a small city. It's unbelievable what's happening out there. And you're talking about just on the Lily side, $18 billion dollars of investment. 18 with a B, $18 billion dollar of investment. And not just like in brick and mortar. It's investment in first of their kind drugs.
It's the largest uh manufacturing pharmaceutical manufacturing operation in the country, maybe in the world, certainly in the country. Um, and the drugs that are doing there are that they're making there are life-saving. I mean, it's it's it's game changers on the research and on the production side. That's just one piece of the campus. That doesn't speak to the $10 billion or whatever it is that Meta is putting in. This is all happening right here in our state.
We should be proud of that. That investment doesn't happen unless people who are in the position to make policy think broadly about how Jim Morris used to say, think of about our opportunity in its largest context. And and that's what we've done on a lot of these projects. I mean, I even heard for Lebanon like that whole area. Not only are they not You said a term of like uh putting the the risk to the tax base. It's like they're talking about potentially like offsetting property taxes in Lebanon from like the the new revenue that's coming in from property tax on those the leap district.
Yeah. And it's and it's also wage growth and good jobs and keeping talent in in state, right? like we talked about early on and you know all that's residually collected off of that and it's growing Boone County, it's growing Lebanon, it's going to impact Zensville, it's going to impact Hamilton County. Are there some things some challenges have to be worked through? Sure. With any policy of that size, there are some things that have to be worked through.
But in in my opinion, um you're either growing or you're dying. And if we're not making smart investments in growth and and not just in central Indiana, but really across the state, if you're not making smart investments in growth, then we're dying on the vine. then we're not going to be a place where people want to uh to to to come transplant and then live here by choice. Yeah. And I mean I do want to dive in just a little bit deeper into Northwest Indiana into I mean I didn't even think about it until literally right here where he's like the economic impact of a Super Bowl in the region, a Super Bowl in Northwest Indiana. Like that would be insane.
I mean I just looked through u like Google Trends. It's kind of like how I gauge like what everything's hot. like it literally is like flatlined relatively. And then Hammond, Indiana, the search term Hammond, Indiana, you know, in the last however long month, two months, however, since the deal, May 31st to June 30th, it's literally like off the charts about people like what do you say about the uh the marketing impact for the city of Hammond? The media the media value is huge. the the the number of hits, references, and the media value of uh when we had NBA All-Star here of Indianapolis and the shots of downtown, the number of shots of downtown Indianapolis and the number of shots that were happening of community centers and schools and other things that were feeding into the game, right?
Like just content during the game huge. It's very difficult to put a price tag on that. It's media exposure that we don't get naturally. I mean, I talk about this with uh we just had Final Four and the backdrop was Harry and Izzy's. Yeah. like right there.
And it's like you can't put a price on just like having the real estate where they said, "Yeah, you know what? This is a good backdrop for us." And Nate, one one real quick, one one thing, and I think you and I talked about it before when we chatted for Northwest Indiana. I mean, there are things that like a lot of people don't think about, just the the fact that this deal potentially if it happens, if it happens, right, is going to create statutoily a mechanism like the capital improvement board that we have here in Marian County in northwest Indiana. um is important. That's that's really important infrastructure for that multi-county region to be able to pull off not just Super Bowl, right?
That's the holy grail obviously, but other really important events and finance them and have strategies around attracting them in a different way. That's that's infrastructure that doesn't exist right now that something like this, just even getting this conversation going is really helpful toward. Yeah. And I mean, you talk about I don't know what the property value in an area like Hammond was 12 months ago, but even just on speculation, I feel like it's have to be a positive swing thus far. Uh, and it's like imagine when it comes to fruition, it's like I know you're taking that whole region. Um, there are some great places, some awesome spots, but there's also some spots that, uh, have seen, you know, a better time in the like the steel age industry.
And now you're making this a destination where people from across the world, the literal world would fly in for a Bears game. Like that's wild. And and and and again, when we talk about how like this doesn't happen by mistake and and people can nitpick all they want, right, and throw red meat around, I choose to look at the facts. We under under Governor Hulcom, we made significant the legislature made significant investments in double tracking the Southshore line up there. And at the time, nobody really understood the significance of that. But the connectivity between Northwest Indiana, Southbend, but Northwest Indiana and Chicago is huge.
And now it's one of the reasons that the Bears are willing to engage in these conversations because it's so easy to get back and forth. They had to be it had to be modernized. We had to double track it and we had to build infrastructure around it. We made that investment that laid the groundwork for for even these conversations. And so when you think about aggressive t tax tax policies, uh investments in amenities, investments in infrastructure, investments in econ economic development incentives, these are sort of like the foundational pieces that you need to continue to attract um Lily's investments, Meta's investments, the bearish kinds of investments. Um you know, it you have to lay the groundwork.
You have to have infrastructure in place. And that's what our responsibility is as as policy makers. Well, the groundwork for sport in the city of Indianapolis was laid far beyond you, far beyond Governor Hulkcom. This was back in 1979, even when we were the first sports commission in the country with Indie Sports Corp, Indiana Sports Corp. The very first the very first mover and shaker on that scene. Uh, seeing the business of sports as a driver of economic development.
Talk to me about what you, you know, gleaned from time with Jim Morris and these other, you know, original kind of creators of this vision of the amateur sports capital of the world back in, you know, again in 79, the Panama games in ' 84 that have now come to fruition in a big way in 2026 and beyond. Yeah, these guys understood at that time that sports should be a big piece of our economy and and saw the value of of saw understood the value of economics and sports in a different way. Um and you know without the sports corp you don't have a lot of those major events right and it became it's interesting because it became the model for so many other states that almost every state now has and in fact regions and cities now have sports corporations that do similar work to think that we were the first and laid that groundwork and then you know obviously it helped with the NCA I mean just getting the NCA here getting the NCA here and having them here and having an agreement where you have a rotating Final Four and a rotating women's final four and the kinds of events that we bring here through the NCA is, you know, it's impossible to put a a value on that, right?
It's every four years because it's not just the economic uh investment that comes with that and the impact that it makes. It's also how that gives us an opportunity to bring young people involved, get them involved in the industry, get them involved in volunteering for events, right? So, those large events are really important. What's exciting to me under Patrick Dalty's leadership and uh Julie Brolas who just came off as chair of uh of Sports Corp, what's what's really wonderful to me and exciting to me as a board member on Sports Corp now. Um long- serving board member, I guess, uh for a while is we continue to draw big events, right? That's the bread and butter.
But now we're looking at industry workforce needs and how we might be able to define commonalities across different types of sports in in different career fields. Every every venue needs cyber. Every venue needs electricians and welders and engineers and facility managers. We we can be creating and we have started to talk about this through our academia uh pillar in our 2050 vision. We have started to talk about like how you structure how sports corp is the catalyst for structuring some commonalities around across the industry in the talent side and the talent attraction and retention side. That's a huge piece of this.
Um how do we look at research in sports? How do we look at tangential things? You know we've got the second large I don't know if you knew this. We got the second largest manufacturer of football helmets in the country in playing field. All the activity happening uh in Fort Wayne on the riverfront. We've got different pockets of like logistics and manufacturing and biolife sciences that can tap into the sports industry to continue to grow.
We should be leveraging that. It isn't just about um it isn't just about big events and attracting big events. Now, we created a big a bid fund to be able to help uh outside of central Indiana largely outside of central Indiana communities do exactly this. Attract organizations to their communities, attract events to their communities, and think larger. We had an organization um that that was taking bid fund money because they were bringing an event to Northwest Indiana and we wanted them to think about this as how do you take this and develop a larger economic development strategy. Those are things that sports can be a catalyst for that isn't just like okay the final four the Super Bowl.
Wow. Okay. So I did dive into is it Ser and yeah they prod I mean shut that's like a huge football as a as an ex football guy and then the new brand or newer to me is is it vicious vicious whatever yeah yeah but see like who are their suppliers that you can unlock their suppliers you can unlock so many pieces of this right um that again sports is the catalyst for but it's not a direct direct sports conversation yeah and you talk about like I mean how many different USA interport do we have there like USA football or USA track and field? We have Yeah, we have of course we have several. We have obviously the ones that are downtown. So we have we had track and field.
We had um we had swimming that's was and now is out in Colorado and is we're trying to get them back. But you've got gymnastics that just is making the move to Noblesville. In fact, we had a conversation this week about gymnastics. Simone Biles, right? I know. I know.
It's pretty hype. It's awesome. Right. And it's and it's allowing Mayor Jensen up there to think big about an entire campus with the arena up there and and and you know again people our age roughly I'm a little older than you but people our age who who are mid-career who have higher earning potential are in you know critical fields they want to be around amenities they want to be around cool things they want to be around venues they want access to sports and music and other things so you've got to be able to invest in this sports can be the catalyst for all of that has been for us. I mean, yeah. And you talk about something like uh I mean, we don't want to get into the nuts and bolts of it, but the capital improvement board that like kind of owns and operates all those venues.
When this podcast releases, we'll be a week away from 30 years of Victory Field. And obviously, you know, uh the Indians are Indiana's or Indianapolis's like oldest professional sporting uh sports team. I think it's 19 02 maybe might be the number. 124 years, I think. It's crazy. It's a It's like a forever amount of time, but you can go back and look on Google Earth, that little corridor of downtown when Victory Field was put in in 1996, it was like a gravel parking lot and like you know, they had the river there and now you see the the development that's expanded over there.
the uh I mean you lose the Hooser Dome or the RCA Dome, you gain the convention center, that whole little like I mean the JW Marriott goes up, JW Conrad, all the Marriotts on Washington Street, Lucas Oil, Victory Field, um you know, all the way to Gamebridge, everything that's happening across Georgia, right? We've got there's a reason these events keep coming here is because we've got this connected downtown that's walkable even when it's cold because half of your rooms are connected through covered walkways. We've planned it that way. This is just a well planned out city that was in large part at least the modern city was planned out in part around sports as economic development. I mean you talk about that like pillar on the would you say that's like on the west side southwest kind of side just straight west side uh with victory fields like this is aa baseball field. This isn't riggy.
It's it is amazing. I I love the Vic. Uh but you talk about like this being a catalyst for you know tourism for people getting out and exploring the the entire mile mile square mile square. Um I I think it's just I think it's fantastic when you're in conversations around Indiana Sports Corps when you're in conversations around politics. What's like the the great white whale of an event that we're looking to bring either back or to for the first time in this in Indianapolis? I mean, I I I think the events always start and stop with Super Bowl, right?
Because it's, you know, I mean, how crazy would it be, though, if it ended up in like 10 years. Yeah. I mean, it could be. Look, we're, you know, obviously we're going to have to make some hard decisions around Lucas Oil, I think. But we're going to continue to invest in the amenities because it's now 20, you know, 20 years old almost. So, we're going to continue to invest there, I'm sure.
And the, you know, the NFL likes to see that investment. I, you know, I don't know. I don't have any inside information. I would love to get them back, but I mean, look, again, I I can't wait. And I'm not a huge w I was I was a gold I'm a golden era I'm like you had Jake Oakman on. Right.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So Jake and I are like golden era wrestling guys. Right. So I love like the 1980s.
Yeah. Wrestling. That's when I grew up and Right. So I'm not a huge WWE fan. I don't watch it right now. Yeah.
I cannot wait for a Wrestlemania here. It is a game changer. I mean the spend from those fans. Isn't that crazy? Like I I have literally no idea. No concept.
They're awesome. The fans are fantastic. The fan base for Wrestlemania is awesome. Um, people fly in from all over the world for that event. Uh, it's a huge economic driver. We, you know, again, we were able, you know, Patrick Talty with his relationship with WWE was able to leverage the bid fund that we created a couple years ago through the legislature to to land a 10-year deal with with WWE.
Did and I mean, I don't know if it did or not. Did Pat McAfee have any sort of like is that a piece that helps with that bid to get WWE here for 10 years? It could be. I mean, look, I'm telling you, when when we had um I I can't remember if it was a Monday Night Raw or uh or a Smackdown or something, but we have them twice a year at Gamebridge Fieldhouse. And so, we we had one and I was working that night. I was at the building and so was kind of walking around and watching and there was a time a night or a piece of the show where McAfee came out and there was some kind it was a time where there were some conversations around Wrestlemania, right?
and are we going to get a Wrestlemania here and all those kinds of things and Pat stood in the middle of that ring and just teased. Just teased. That's all he did like Pat does. And people went absolutely crazy. They love Pat. They love the idea of more WWE here.
And you do something like that. And that again is a is a massive massive economic injection for downtown. We had the Royal Rumble at No, I know that. Yeah. This was even before that. This was Yeah.
Yeah. So he teased it cuz we got like three marquee like super big events. Survivor Series, I think, right? Summeram Summerlam, which will be two nights and Wrestlemania. Like the three where we had Royal Rumble where I mean, again, this is like fact check the whole thing, but 70,000. 70,000 in Lucas World.
Like that's crazy. I know. And they're all They're the best fans, Nate. They're the best. They come in, there's no fights, there's no wild. You would think, but they're just the happiest people.
They come in, they love the product. U They're so passionate. They're great people. It's fantastic. and and you know and again WrestleMania is the gold standard of that. Yeah.
And his final appearance was uh for John Cena. Wasn't that I think it was quote again quote me or go back and fact check me on this. I think he was his last time in Indie was also at WrestleMania. It's it was so sad. I'm not a WWE fan, but it was like a crazy a wild journey. And we're going to get you know two more of the large marquee events that'll draw, you know, again 70,000 probably per night.
They're both double night events. And then you talk about like the secondary side of that too, sporting venues. Like I was down for both nights of Morgan Wallen. Like that's crazy. These huge concerts that go in there. I just think that uh when looking at the stadium in Northwest Indiana and the potential there, the tax structure and all that is just extremely complicated and I don't feel like there's an easy way to digest that and understand.
And I I also feel for state legislators. It's like you might get elected because you want, you know, you have a couple key pillars that I mean right now, let's take this for instance. You get elected as the state representative in any district. Now, the number one thing that people are probably asking you about is data centers. And it's like you spent your whole life, I mean 5 years ago, 10 years ago, you probably have no idea what this is. And like it's your job then to go and educate yourself to know how this affects your how something that's probably never come to fruition in in history is going to affect your tax base a decade plus from now.
Like that's a hard spot to be in. You got to spend you got to spend the time. It this is this is truly about public service. And you know I I tell people this all the time. If you a lot of people think they want to do this job, right? But they don't understand what goes into this job.
They don't understand number one the scrutiny that comes with it which is all part of politics and in in a social media era and yeah whatever which is all fine but it's also the amount of time that you have to if you're going to if you're going to make good policy if you're going to be effective policy maker then you then you have to spend time on relationships and you got to spend time learning the subjects I'm very lucky I got in my first term as a freshman I got put on our ways and means committee so I do tax reform and I do budget and economic incentive stuff is really where I spend most of my time and it's complicated I mean the the school funding formula there's probably three people in state that understand the school funding formula. It's complicated as anything and we're constantly tweaking tweaking it. The property tax reform conversations that we're having are now that we're going through.
We've been going through the last couple years. I've been, you know, right in the middle of that obviously and it's it's complicated stuff. And it's not only is it complicated to learn, but it's not, as you said, it's not easy to explain it to a tax to a taxpayer. So, I spent a every weekend, right, and and and a lot of days during the year knocking on doors. Even when we're not in cycle, even when we're not up for election, we're knocking on doors. And when I knock on doors, people want to talk about property taxes in my area.
And so when when we have those conversations, I have to figure out like how to uh break that down in English so they understand the benefits and and the costs that go along with that and what we're really working on. That's not an easy thing to do and that takes time. You got to invest time as a public servant. Yeah. I mean, I think it's also wild. You're working for I mean, one of the coolest brands in the state, you know, you talk about sports teams, you talk about like the Lilies and the Salesforces, like all cool Indiana brands.
I mean, Pacers for sure top five. I would say if people said like, "Oh, yeah, that would be fun to work for to then like willingly enter yourself into the arena of politics." Why? I enjoy the public service. I I I really do. Um I've spent 20 years in this.
I've worked for everybody from I've worked for Mitch Daniels, Mike Pence, Eric Hulcom, all three of them at different levels. I was Dan Coat's state director for three years. Dan was the definition of a public servant. Such a good, caring man that loved the state, loves the state, and loved his constituents. Yeah. Um and worked for people like Jim Morris that and Earl Good that just have done this for the right reasons.
And look, I tell everybody the same. You know, there's there's a lot of places where somebody like me couldn't afford would number one wouldn't be called to action, right? a transplant as we talked about before, but maybe would would really uh struggle to to live a middle class life um as a part-time legislature and then having to scrouch by or whatever get by on your professional side. That's not the case here because of cost of living and quality of life and whatever I'm able to do to really truly serve the public and and uh and do it in a way that's effective and I can dedicate time to it and I I just love it. I love being in the building. There's something uh just remarkable about about that building.
I'm a competitor, you know. I love I love sports and like the business of sports and talk about you know heartbreak for the Pacers, you know, I guess now at this point two NBA finals ago coming up a little bit a little bit short one game an injury who who knows you know what I want to know is as the state as you guys sit down in the in the state house as you know different elected officials who are we competing against like who is the state of Indiana trying to beat today. Like, who are we trying to run down? Who we trying to beat, and who are we trying to keep distance from? Like, when we think of who our competitors are, cuz that gets me fired up to like make better content today than Michigan makes today. Like, that I just get fired up about.
That it's interesting that you asked that question because it's one of the most significant and important changes that's happened over the last two decades. We went from being a state that didn't believe that it could compete globally, let al you know, nationally, let alone globally for investment at all and didn't want to compete. People weren't, we were not competing. We had a guy come to office that changed the conversation. And the most significant and important to me, the most significant and important change that has happened in the state over 20 years is that people now expect us to compete for investment globally and for talent globally. And so when I look at our competitors, it's not just Ohio.
It is Ohio, but it used to be just Ohio and Michigan and Kentucky. And you know, then we were trying to take people from Illinois cuz you know, we're so much of a better place to live than than they are. Okay, fine. So we were taking people, but now we look at Georgia and Florida, Texas, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina for a lot of the manufacturing stuff. Certainly Ohio, certainly Illinois. are contiguous states, right?
Michigan, Kentucky, absolutely. But we're we're competing with every state. It's not hyperbole to say that we are competing with every state on every ranking. And one of the best things I think one of the most impactful things that we saw over the over the eight years that Governor Hulcom served, and I'm biased obviously, but one of the great things that I I experienced, he really wanted to position us to compete for global investment. And so global investment just absolutely blew up. and it's Japan and it's Germany and it's you know uh Ireland and it's places that you would not think that we are they want to come here they want Korea they want to come here and make massive investments and whether that's SKH or that's domestic you know homegrown like Lily um or it's Rathon and Ro or it's Cumins or you know or it's homegrown like Cook Medical we are doing some amazing things that we would not have competed for in the we would not have wanted or thought that we could compete for in the past.
I mean, people forget. I mean, no one actually forgets, but it's recent news. The largest market cap company on this side, the east side of the Mississippi River, is not in New York. It's not in Miami. It's not in Bentonville, Arkansas. Mhm.
It's in Indianapolis. Unbelievable. The first life science trillion dollar market cap company is Eli Lillian Company right downtown Indianapolis. That's nuts. Yeah. And they are not doing things like retail.
They are actually producing things that save lives and change lives. It's an incredible story. If I always give this recommendation to people who want just like a deep dive into it. Uh Dave Ricks went on allin different than get in both both podcasts in the space. Uh very comparable to just kidding. It's one of the biggest podcast one of the biggest podcast in the world.
Uh he goes on there does an interview and like whatever they're selling I'm buying. like he the way he talks about the investments that they're making like they're curing diseases that you know it takes a long time roughly you know you're talking about decades away like they're always staying ahead of you know the innovation like they were working on the GLP-1 type stuff a a decade plus ago and like you know to get it all the way to market to get their uh the capsule form or whatever it's going to be like the oral version it's it's wild it's probably like a 2 hour hour 30 podcast I think if I remember right but I left it being like oh my gosh like Eli Liy isn't just like a homegrown humble hooer Indiana ye-haw company it's like a global leader in innovation that is like literally changing the world and it's right here people take that for granted for sure I know they do and think about what what that means for our supply chains and our workforce and other companies that are coming here and the investments that are happening in our downtown or in our central Indiana I mean it's it it truly is a game changer I mean, Nate, the some of the stuff we saw at LEAP yesterday was uh, you know, they've got, you know, they're creating start to finish uh products in in in manufacturing um drugs in on one site in a condensed space.
I mean, it's it's an incredible thing. And again, I I can't reinforce this enough. Number one, this does not happen without a competitive tax structure. And we have done that. We have put a competitive tax structure in place that that you know that puts us on par with just about any state, allows us to compete with any state for this kind of investment. And then you got to have vision to invest in it.
You got to have things in place that allow us to allow cities and allow the state to compete for this kind of investment. And you talk about the other piece that is interesting to add in there. It's like it's taxes. And I mean, if you look around every right now, the hottest one is colleges. like the triple C college and community collaboration with the Lily endowment and you probably have a better gauge of that but like having a one of the largest endowments in the world that is set to guiding principles are investing in Indianapolis Indiana as a whole in what community development education and youth specifically for the state of Indiana and then their third pillar is again this is started in like 19 I think it's a foundation since 1937 but religion like the guiding principles of them of the Lily endowment is to invest in the state of Indiana on community development, education, and youth.
Like every I think it was like 18 or 19 colleges got grants through the CCC with them. It's nuts. We are not the state we are without the announcement. There's no doubt. And it's ti I'm assuming I don't know again I don't know how the value of it works. I'm assuming it's tied to Lily Stock.
Yeah, it is. We have largely I think we we have the I mean think about this. We've got the we are the largest Jim Moore should talk about this. We we are the largest or the smallest city in America with a full-time symphony orchestra. We have the largest medical school in the country at IU medical school. We have I mean there's there's inc incredible the the zoo is is unbelievable and world class.
The amenities that we have here are world class. Um these are the byproduct of not just vision and investment on the on the public sector side but also on the philanthropic side. We're not the state we are without dude. I used to think I used to think you know okay the most powerful person in Indiana might be the governor might be like the CEO of Lily like it might be whoever is whoever of the endowment like it's wild I I've gone on a little bit of a college tour so I did episodes with um President Ms from Ball State Manchester University Wash and I'm going on even more all of them and their communities are benefiting from funds from the Lily endowment And like you know, you talk about tying in, you know, Manchester University with North Manchester, Indiana. And I mean, this is a town of just around 5,000 people. Like they're getting, you know, millions of dollars in development and getting matching like from the area funds to create these amazing real estate developments and community spaces to host lectures and concerts.
It's it's nuts. And the beauty of it is that our universities are now starting to think about how they make uh their impact off campus. So I did I was lucky enough to do the commencement for Marian University this year. That's sweet. It was awesome. It was amazing.
And Marian is is the is the stereotypical college for this kind of thing for for transitioning from just making looking at the impact that it makes as what you know what happens on campus to what happens off campus. Dan Ellner is a visionary and an incredible leader and he has pushed that university off campus to the neighborhoods to make it part of the mission of the university to improve the neighborhoods that surround the campus. It's an amazing thing. But thinking about, you know, how they have looked to sort of applied education, even stuff that IU is doing, certainly stuff that Purdue does, stuff that some of the some of the colleges at at Butler do. I mean, our boy at Yeah. It's now looking, right?
It's now looking at like the the the question higher ed is not, you know, how you keep these kids on campus and sort of, you know, you keep these faculty in the classroom. It's now how do we make impact with uh our city, the state, other employers. Um and so the endowments resources that they've put on the table has been instrumental in helping force that relationship to happen and they've happened. Obviously, you need it at, you know, institutions like Ball State, IU, Purdue, like those are, you know, institutions that are, I mean, they're going to withstand hopefully the test of time. But when you look at small private colleges, places like the Marian, the Manchesterers, the Dep Wabashes, the Erlam College of Richmond, like they need this, like this is gamecher for them outlasting the Wittenbergs or the Oberlands or the you know, obviously Overland's actually a really rich university in uh in Ohio, but like you know, you're talking about competing with those and it's like, hey, like higher ed's getting changed up a lot and we got to protect some of these institutions Because you know the town of North Manchester needs Manchester University.
That is like a staple employer. The town of Green Castle needs Depa. It is a huge employer in that county. When I was at Strata, we had a partnership with Gallup and it was a a massive collection of of data with Gallup. And what we consistently saw what we consistently saw and and this was looking at stopout students, traditional graduates, adult learners that had come back um across the spectrum of type of student and nationally, not looking at Indiana, but just nationally. Um consistently what you heard was that people were questioning the value equation of higher education.
people no longer saw the value in attending and completing. Since that time, there's been such a push, such a push uh and rightly on these universities, big and small, to figure out how you survive when you are facing a whatever it is, a 600,000 student cliff coming up pretty soon of kids that won't be enrolling. And I think this year is like the first year of that. So, they've got to figure out how to survive and how to be relevant in that kind of environment. And it is obviously the smaller universities that have are a little more at risk, but the larger universities are are too. They have to shift and they largely have we've got some great leadership at at our public universities that are thinking differently about the role of their university and the impact that they make.
This episode is coming out on July 3rd, obviously July 4th, America 250. My question for you, looking ahead 250 years, what opportunities do you believe Indiana is positioned to capitalize on that could transform how the United States of America looks at the state of Indiana? Our secret sauce here is we bring people together to solve problems and we solve Indiana problems. We don't solve Washington DC problems. We don't solve other states problems. We look at what our people need and we create policy.
Uh, and when I say policy, I don't mean just inside the state house or the city county building. Policy at large, um, companies, philanthropy, other things. Um, to make people's lives better. And that's reforming the education system, reforming the tax code. Um, helping, you know, what we do on philanthropy, what we do on community development. Uh, I think that's the opportunity be, you know, before us over the next 20 years.
I I I said this last night in an event that I was at. I am very conf I wouldn't be doing this otherwise. I am very confident that the next 20 years are going to be better than the last 20 years. And the last 20 years have been really good. Uh we've made taken a lot of strides, but there's a lot left to do. We've got some chronic challenges in Indiana that we've not figured out how to come.
Look, the pivot that we've made on literacy has been as as impressive as any state in the country. We were a true lagard in literacy. We're up to number six or number five this year in literacy outcomes. And it's only because we dedicated ourselves to it. We have to make that same effort on numeracy. And numeracy is challenging.
We don't really, nobody really knows how to do that all that well. Is that like math? Yeah, math and science. And for a STEM state, we got to do numeracy. We We got to do this well. That's a challenge.
We've got mental health issues that we have to continue to invest in. We've got childcare issues that we need to continue to invest in. We've got public health and obesity issues that we have to continue to invest in and and structure policies around. So, we've got some looming challenges. What makes me optimistic is that the way that we're going to do these meet these challenges head on. I'm confident is going to be very different than the way other states do.
And the way we're going to do it is by pulling people together, having seats at the table for young people, and bringing them into the equation. Heck yeah. So, when someone listens to this in 250 years, I don't know. I'm not going to do the public math on what year that will be, but a lot. See, we need numerousy. Yeah.
Wait, 2,27 2276? I don't know. Do the math on that one. But when you listen to it 250 years from now, let us know. I mean, we won't be able to let us know, but share the good word with people. If the prophecy was true, are we still connecting people together?
Are we still giving young people a seat at the table to make an impact? And are we working together to make this the best possible place it can be? Okay, that was electric. We've come to the end of the show where we get to talk all We've already been talking all things Indiana, but we have some rapid fire questions to round it out. This question is brought to you by our friends at JC Hart. They're a leader in creating enjoyable living experiences at apartment communities all across Indiana and beyond.
Check them out at homejart. com. My question for you, why do you call Indiana home? It's best state in the country. It's wonderful people, wonderful communities, wonderful quality of life. You can't beat it.
Yes. I love that. See, I had some ones of like your favorite Indiana venue, but it's going to be by favorite Indiana venue outside of the fieldhouse. Uh the Speedway. Yes. Absolutely.
No doubt. Oh, and what I got one more. Can I add one more? Yeah. Cuz that's on the sports side. M uh if you've not been to the palladium in Caramel, it is an unbelievable venue for music, for orchestra, for uh you know, plays and performances.
It's I went for my first time recently for Miro Awards for Techpoint. It's insane. It's like nothing else in the state of Indiana. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Favorite non-basket event that's hosted at the Fieldhouse?
Non- annual was Bochelli. We went twice. We're huge. We took our kids. We're huge Bochelli fans, all of us. And I don't know what Bochelli is.
Andrea Bochelli, who's an opera singer, is just the best in the world. He's the best. So, that was a wonderful uh one. And we also loved Kiss. I took my my wife, who's not Sophia's not a huge Kiss fan, admittedly, not a Kiss fan, but we went for our anniversary and it was awesome. That's that's sick.
Uh annual event. I would say to this point, it's been Disney on Ice just because we've we take our we've taken our kids several times and um you know, you you just can't they first of all, it's Disney. It's world class. They they do it right. And just to look over and and see your young kids enjoying themselves, that's it's priceless. So, if young people with political aspirations or interest in politics are listening to this, what advice do you have for young people interested in politics?
Read everything you can. One of the big challenges we face right now is uh and I and I see this with students that my wife my wife is a a professor at Butler and has been in academia for a long time and I see this with students that I interact with that she interacts with. Kids don't read anymore. Kids live in this sort of condensed Twitter space. They get all their info here. Yeah.
This is where they're getting their info. And that's great. I'm not I'm not against it. Read read books, read non-fiction, read fiction, read articles from different places. Read the New York Times. Read the Wall Street Journal.
Um, but consume articles and information around public policy. The public policy should be the focal point of the work. If you're in public service, it's not about the next seat that you're running for. It's not about like, oh, one day I want to be, you know, I want to serve in Congress. It's it's good to have uh, you know, aspirations and to be an ambitious person. Nothing wrong with that at all, but the central focus of why you do these kinds of jobs ought to be public service.
Um, and and that means having a broad education base on all different kinds of policies. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, think today, too. Let's say you're not a sit down and read because I am not a sit down and read, but I have apps and audiobooks and I am just like constantly listening to audio books count. Yeah, audio books count. Come on.
Or like I even have an app that like reads me my emails, reads me I just like I don't know why I just like I don't know an audio guy where you know we listen to it but like I'll turn it on like an IBJ article and I'll you know maybe you know I don't know do whatever make my coffee but I'll be listening to like what's going on. the number one way I feel like to just just chase down curiosity whether it again fiction non-fiction go out there be curious about what's going on in your community be curious around what's going on in the world I just think uh I mean you talked about it uh we talked about it earlier you know you're a a leader in a community and you're facing issues today that were not a conversation a decade ago five years ago they weren't a conversation and so it's your job if you have political aspirations to become versed in, you know, the world and what's going on. Yeah. And and stay involved.
I mean, you know, find people you like regardless of political party, find people you like, help them out, be involved in the campaigns. And and then the the last thing that I always along the same lines as reading that I always tell young people mentioned in in the commencement too is I always encourage people who are uh who are starting their careers um to go back and read children's books that they should have read or they did read because the lessons you pull uh are different at different stages of your life and um and it forces you to sort of reflect on life generally um gain a greater understanding for and appreciation of other people other types of people that Um, you know, children's literature gives you lessons that, um, that adult literature doesn't. Yeah. And so I always tell people like, go back and read, you know, uh, Stuart Little or go back and read, you know, name it. Uh, what whatever it is that interests you.
1984 or I did just make that read recently. Yeah. You you get something different than you did when you were 18. Lord of the Flies. Go back and listen. When you actually do it for fun is a lot different than when you do it because you're right.
So just I guess the bottom line is, you know, literacy is important. Go read. I have a book recommendation that came actually from when I was in high school. You ever read Tuesdays with my I did. Oh god, it's amazing. You want a tearjerker?
That's the Mitch Album book, right? Uh yes. And about uh I think he has ALS and like even in high school that moved me, but like as an adult you're just like be ready for the waterworks. Fact check me on that. I can't remember if that was the author or not, but yeah, I thought it was Yeah. Mitch album.
Yeah. Yep. Uh okay. I have four questions. I have three that I ask every guest, but I do want to do one off script a little bit here. When writing a commencement speech, where do you start?
Everybody wants to say something super insightful that nobody has said before, you know, I'm not Bill Gates or, you know, Jerry Seinfeld or something. So that's not going to So when I have the ones that I've done when I've done it, I just the ones plural. How many have you done? I did one for an IvyTech campus one. I've done a couple in the high schools. Oh, that's so sick.
Yeah. What I try to do is first of all, you got to give yourself time because you're going to have 50 rewrites because you're going to think, "Wow, that sounded good when I wrote it and then it doesn't really sound." So, you got to give yourself time. I think it's try to leave your audience with a lesson that's practical, right? That is meaningful. And also try to speak English.
I mean, it it just needs to be basic and simple and direct. Um, you can get flowery. You can get caught caught up in trying to, you know, write memorable phrases or whatever. The reality is just speak to the audience. Yeah. I love that.
Uh, one of the best ones I've listened to recently was, uh, Eric Church did University of North Carolina and he was like thinking about it and he's like, I just picked up my guitar and he he made a whole commencement speech about the six strings of a guitar and how that applies to your guitar hero education. It was and then he played a song at the end. I mean, and it's Yeah, it's tough to but but to that point also, it's it's it's also good to give like personal reflections, right? Like if you can speak to personal anecdotes, stories, things that have actually happened to you, it it comes across as, you know, much more sincere and and relatable. Shout out to my DEPA commencement speaker, uh, Drew Powell. He was, uh, you know, he's he's a a frequent flyer at the Fieldhouse.
Uh, he like absolutely crushed it, you know, actor out in LA doing his thing. Okay, we're uh we've come to this part of the show where we ask every guest the same three questions. So, this first one gives you an opportunity to shed some light on a part of the state that more people need to be talking about. What is a hidden gem in Indiana? Going down to Morango Caves is a cool is a cool place. Oh, I see.
I don't like I went I did the whole both tours, the whole nine yards. I don't like caves. Like I don't like the enclosed kind of part of it, but it's so beautiful. The stagmites, the stag tites, the whole thing. It's so cool. It's so cool and it's such a neat and and on top of that, what I like about it is the trip down is if especially if you go on the fall is just beautiful.
Yeah. And you're really close. You could go to Moringo Tavern or you could go to the Overlook restaurant right on the Ohio River. Both awesome, too. And the Yeah. The the look the uh visual from uh from the overlook is Isn't it crazy?
It's like that little bend in the Ohio and you kind of like realize how big the Ohio River is, you know? Like we get kind of uh you think about rivers kind of maybe around here through central Indiana, the White River, this that and you see the Ohio and you're like shoot like that's crazy. Next, this is where we source new guest ideas or learn about other people in the state of Indiana that are doing cool things. Who's a Hooser we need to keep on our radar? Someone who's doing big things. Have a conversation with Dan Coats um on the air and I bet he would do it.
Um I Dan's stories are unbelievable. He was right in the middle of um you know of quail world and when Quail went to be vice president then he he was in he ran for quail seat. You know he's got incredible stories o over 50 years of public service and he's such a good and decent man and he'll gladly share those stories. So somebody like that for for a podcast would be fantastic. We should make that happen. He's he be super cool.
Fifth ever director of national intelligence and that's probably the coolest part. He's his stories, whatever he can share, are probably just phenomenal. That was not that long ago. Yeah. He was the first Trump administration. Yeah.
You Oh, the United States ambassador to Germany. He was right during 9/11. So, he has some great stuff. He has some amazing So, he was a great man to work for. Okay. We might need to make that happen.
Finally. Okay. South Florida transplant. You come up to Bloomington. You end up here in central Indiana. You've been working in public service and sports, some I mean one of the coolest brands in Indiana.
But when you look back, when you close your eyes and you think about your greatest Indiana moment ever, what is your favorite Indiana memory? Election night when Hulkcom won. We were up on stage. He was giving a speech. Um it was just so seemingly improbable. Um, and I had been with Eric for so long as staff together and then, you know, working alongside him and then obviously working under him when we were lieutenant governor.
And I I know his heart and I know his passion for this for this state and I know his um desire to engage all different kinds of people in all walks of life. And I remember thinking, man, this is going to go really well because uh he's got the heart of what we want in a governor. Uh, and so that was a great night. And it was also such an odd, you know, it was a 100 day campaign as others, I'm sure, have talked to you about, but it was a 100 day campaign. It was so unorthodox. Uh, and so to see it come to fruition and be up there with them was a really special night.
Danny, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your stories again from South Florida to Bloomington to Central Indiana to getting involved in public service to, you know, the Pacers, all the work that you've been doing. Uh, the business of sports is super interesting. It's something that is within the fabric and the DNA of the state of Indiana. It's so cool. It's going to be cool to see how the future plays out, how, you know, whether or not the stadium comes to Northwest Indiana, how we continue to improve what we currently have and attract bigger and better and uh all of those kind of sporting events and and you know, related conferences and conventions and things, but also how we get uh a bigger breadth of, you know, the business that is sports. And uh it was an awesome time to get to share the mic with you.
If people want to learn more about you, if they want to connect with you, how can they do that? Uh, just email me directly. I'm super accessible, so I can give you my email. It's dopez7979@gmail. com. Send me an email.
I love it, man. Hey, thank you so much for coming on. We'll talk to you soon. Thanks, Nate. This show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater. Whether you're looking to start a podcast or take your content to the next level, click the link in the description to see all my gear recommendations at Sweetwater.
And if you want a behind-the-scenes look at everything we're doing across the state, make sure you follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok, Nate Spangle. Thank you so much for listening and being a part of what makes the Hooer State great. We'll see you next time here on Get
