CFP NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP: ALABAMA VS GEORGIA

January 11, 2022

Susan Baughman

Bill Hancock

Joe Hogsett

Mark Howell

CFP Media Conference

BILL HANCOCK: Good morning, everybody. Appreciate you coming. We are delighted -- and that word is an understatement -- with the performance of this city.

By the way, I'm Bill Hancock, executive director of the College Football Playoff.

It was an exceptional performance. Great leadership by the host committee. Phenomenal people, starting with Mark and Susan, but Eric and Andy, all of your staffs.

And mostly what people will remember about this city is the incredible volunteers. More than a thousand of them. It seemed like there was a volunteer on every corner who had a smiling face and every answer.

I've never seen anything like it. And the people of Indianapolis don't take this for granted. This is what you are about. This is what your people are about. And we're just delighted at the College Football Playoff that we were able to spend a nice long weekend with you. So thank you very much.

I also have to thank the fans from the two schools. What passion there was in the stadium. Remarkable. And of course they stayed until the last pick-6 because no one knew what was going to happen. But this is what college football is about. College football is about passion of fans, great performances on the field and phenomenal hosting in the small towns around America that host college football, including now Indianapolis. We couldn't be more pleased with how we were treated in this city.

I mentioned Mark and Susan, but it starts at the top with Mayor Joe. I'd like to welcome to the podium Mayor Joe Hogsett.

[APPLAUSE].

MAYOR HOGSETT: Thank you, Bill. I'm so proud of this city and never more so than this morning. After such a wonderful weekend. One year ago, when Indianapolis took over from Miami to become host for the College Football Playoff national championship, this city does what it always does. It was springing into action then and has continued since then.

And while for most of the fans this has been a weekend of fun, a weekend of entertainment and excitement for us here in Indy, we have been preparing and celebrating for an entire year.

Pay no attention, by the way, to the bags under my eyes. You'll have to forgive me. In the months leading up to the game, our city, our municipal agencies began laying out the proverbial red carpet for visitors.

And so this morning my hat is off to our city's department of public works, to our police, fire and all public safety personnel, to our local health officials, public and private, and our world-class service and hospitality industry. And all of the workers who make up that industry in our downtown.

But the lead-up to yesterday's game was about more than just logistics. It was also a chance for this single event to positively impact our city for years to come.

Last April the college football foundation and our Indianapolis host committee started transforming libraries in four local middle schools into state-of-the-art media centers, with enhanced technology to meet the demands of the 21st century and its educational opportunity.

And if that wasn't enough, our city showed once again how sports and art can align as hundreds of local performers and artists contributed work for events and materials around the game.

I want to specifically mention the auction of the 22 For 22, the art of football poster series, which raised $7,000 for Indiana educators.

Additions like these and the impressive work of city partners are what make events in Indy so special, not only for the teams, not only for their fans, but for everyone -- families, downtown residents, special guests and volunteers.

Bill was right, a volunteer at every corner. So with the conclusion of the 2022 CFP championship in Indianapolis, I'm pleased to report they'll be coming back next year -- no -- (laughter). Bill said that was off script.

We will begin looking forward to the chance to host our next major event. It won't surprise any of you that during the excitement of last night's contest, several people that I was talking to were already discussing what is next for Indianapolis. What is the next major step for our downtown and for our city. So we look forward to that future.

And now I'd like to welcome to the stage -- you know, people like me get credit in some measure for what happened over the course of this past year. That's undeserved. The people that I'm about ready to introduce are who Indianapolis ought to be collectively thanking.

I want to welcome to the stage the woman who called all the plays, who made this spectacular event possible, our Indianapolis host committee President Susan Baughman.

[APPLAUSE].

SUSAN BAUGHMAN: Good morning, everybody. Everybody is up and awake. That's awesome. Thanks so much for coming today. I'm beyond excited that we've completed the weekend and things have gone so very well.

I want to add my congratulations to the Georgia Dawgs. That was an awesome game down to the end. And as good as we could have scripted it if we had those powers.

As the mayor mentioned, the festivities for the College Football Playoff national championship and all the planning began over 12 months ago. But last night's championship was truly four years in the making, since we talked about hosting. We started the bid, and we were actually selected and announced that we were going to host in November of 2017.

So here we are today, this morning, with bags under our eyes, celebrating the national championship and the dozens of events and concerts and hospitality opportunities that are associated, that make this weekend so very special.

We're really very proud to have hosted the 2022 edition of this already storied championship. And we're so appreciative to Bill and the national committee and the staff for working with us over the last years to host such an amazing and spirited event in our downtown.

The mayor mentioned the reputation of Indianapolis, and us being internationally recognized as a host city, and it was proven once again, I believe. The key to that recognition that we get is always coming from the people, the people that live here, the people that work here.

We're small, but we're mighty. We're a great city. Our staff is eight persons big. And the only reason that we're able to cover all the territory we do and all the great events and all the planning is because we had 450 people on our host committee who are volunteers. And this doesn't happen in every city.

We have people who are professionals in every industry that come together, that have great ideas, to execute these events, work together to plan behind the scenes.

And then boots on the ground, we had 2,000 volunteers who made us shine this weekend, everything from sustainability, sorting trash, to courtesy cars, to helping with the team services.

So it's everything you can think of. We can't do it without those people who give of their time so freely to us. And that makes our community very, very special.

I also want to thank the Indy Championship Fund, led by Dave Lewis, and its donors for providing us funds to cover our operating expenses and allowing us the opportunity to dream and showcase our city on this international stage. We're very grateful.

And it goes without saying, it takes partners to do anything great in this city. And we have great partners. I want to recognize Visit Indy, Downtown Indy, Indiana Sports Corp., Indy Arts Council, Indiana Convention Center, Lucas Oil Stadium staff, the City of Indianapolis and our public safety commands which we collectively and affectionately call "Our Team Indy". And without their partnership, this weekend would not be possible and it would not run as smoothly as it does.

So I've been involved in sports for about 30 years here in Indianapolis. And this event, both the weekend, actual execution of the weekend, but also the planning has definitely been a highlight for me.

I just had a couple of thoughts. Every time we do an event, there's like great things that happen. So it's really hard to single a few of them out. But a couple of things that I thought were top of mind for me and worth mentioning was obviously we all know we've been living through the phase of COVID and how that's adjusted and changed the way we plan and the way we're able to execute.

For this event, I talked about 450 people working together on committees. We had about 90-some committees putting this together. There were many people that we had not met in person during this four-year planning process until this week, when we set up the control center at the J.W. Marriott.

We were out, had our volunteers working together. These committee people were able to finally meet each other in person and come together, which I thought was really special and really unique to think that people can find a way to reach common ideas, common goals and actually put planning together at this level and at this scale without ever really being in the same room with each other. I think that's very unique. And I think it really points to the can-do attitude and the willingness of people to work together under any circumstance here to make something great happen. I wanted to mention that.

I guess it's one positive that's come from COVID, because we've learned many ways that we can work and be successful. And for us it also allowed us to include people statewide on our committee, which is difficult to do because people can't always travel in and come to the meetings.

And so that was really an awesome opportunity for us to include persons from all over the state that are very talented to be a part of what happened here in Center City of Indianapolis this weekend.

The other thing I would mention is we talked about the partner organizations. It's impossible really to do anything successful in our city without envisioning this great team of people coming together. And so that's everybody from paid staff people to volunteers, to people who get paid, but go so far above and beyond what they get paid to do that. You can't imagine the time and the hours that they spend.

I would mention public safety, in particular, the city, department of public works. And our partners at all the organizations I mentioned who went so far above and beyond what is their normal scope of work they have to do every day to make this possible.

So at the end of the day I think we all think sports bring people together, but it brings people together in our city in a different way; it makes us feel as one. And it allows us to do things that we can't imagine ever being able to do successfully on our own.

So I think that's a real tribute to our city and our people, and I want to say thank you to everybody who have come together to make this so possible.

Moments like this and relationships and great people like this are really embodied in the next person I want to introduce, which is our board chair and my friend, Mark Howell. I'd like to introduce Mark and have him speak to us.

[APPLAUSE]

MARK HOWELL: I say thank you to Susan, who, for the last four years, has been a tremendous friend, a tremendous collaborator, a tremendous leader and a great partner in what happened here this weekend.

And I think that this weekend was really, really spectacular. And I've never been more proud to be a citizen of this community than I am this morning. So thanks to everyone who is a part of that.

So this event is going to be a cherished memory for all of those who were here, all the fans and their families. But the true success of this event is actually the legacy impact that will happen after the championship weekend.

For the city of Indianapolis, this means significant investments in our hometown. And one of the most significant investments and one of the biggest legacy impacts is two and a half million dollars worth of infrastructure. These investments are including lighting on Georgia Street and the streets that surround Lucas Oil Stadium. And what's most important is that these are investments that will continue to enhance the infrastructure that makes Indianapolis the best place to host major championships.

So I want to thank Mayor Hogsett. I want to thank his team for making these investments possible.

There were a lot of other investments that take place, small investments, large investments. And more than I could possibly mention here this morning.

This championship was one of the most creative, the most inclusive and the most progressive events held here. And there's so many things that I could discuss, but I pulled out a couple of successes that I want to make sure that I had a chance to highlight.

The first thing I want to do, I want to thank the Lilly Endowment, the Indy Arts Council and Downtown Indy for their continued partnership and the way that they all worked together to show vibrant arts and the cultural scene of Indianapolis.

More than half of the artists that were commissioned for this event and that presented were artists of color, and over 60 percent of our performers were awarded to women or women-fronted groups.

Our Tailgate Tour, that team celebrated the College Football Playoffs' focus on athletics and education. And we were at 18 high school football games across the state. Each of these 36 participating schools received a special donation from the committee totaling $54,000 to help with teachers and classroom development.

I want to also thank Indiana University, Purdue University, Butler University and the University of Notre Dame for hosting our innovative conversations around culture and diversity in athletics, engineering and sports, and the community of sports.

And, again, to our mayor, I know everyone was very thankful for the warming zones along Georgia Street and especially for all of those fans who were able to get out there and enjoy the live streams.

Lastly, I want to thank our sustainability committee and Project Green for their efforts, as this was one of the most sustainable events of its kind.

So having talked about these investments in infrastructure and the impact on the weekend itself, I think the investment that I'm personally most proud of is the more than $1 million commitment that the host committee has made in legacy programs in partnership with the Mind Trust in support of the College Football Playoff Foundation and its mission to uplift teachers in grades K through 12.

For Indiana teachers, what this means: It meant the creation of the new Indiana learning lab, the Indiana learning lab is an online resource center for educators that provides a platform for professional development, provides them valuable content and it's also a great tool for collaboration and engagement.

We also formed a partnership with Teach Indy to support the recognition retention of great teachers for Indianapolis schools. As the mayor mentioned development of the state-of-art media centers at four Indianapolis middle schools.

And one of the coolest parts of this weekend's emotional experience was watching the 74 Teachers of the Year from around the country that includes 18 here from Indiana who truly were treated like honored VIPs. And it was so fun to watch them lean into this special weekend.

So I will tell you, and I mean this, the championship weekend was a gift to our city, a gift to Indianapolis, a gift to Central Indiana.

It was a gift to our educators and our legacy impact, it will bear that out. And I will also say this weekend was a gift to me to see what our city could do and the chance to work with the people that I had the opportunity to work with.

So to my partner, Susan, to Bill and his team, thank you for letting me be a part of the College Football Playoff championship. And with that, I'll invite Bill to join us.

[APPLAUSE]

BILL HANCOCK: Thanks, Mark. There's a tradition in college football, when the player makes a great play, he gets a helmet sticker. And we tried to continue that tradition in the CFP.

After the confetti has flown, when it's all over, and the city has been successful, they have made their mark. And we would like to invite them now to affix their helmet sticker to this helmet, which will travel from city to city to city. And I'd like to think in 30 years there will be lots of Indianapolis stickers on here, Mayor.

[APPLAUSE].

But we shall see about that. (Laughter). Let's celebrate today and the success of the city and let's do the formal affixing.

[APPLAUSE].

Beautiful. Thank you very much. And we have to look forward, we have to look for what's ahead of CFP. In a year from now we'll be in Los Angeles, celebrating another successful College Football Playoff. Let's look and see what's in store.

We look forward to Los Angeles, but they will know that Indianapolis has set a very high mark. Thanks to everyone in Indianapolis who made this remarkable weekend possible. Thank you.