Could Olympic Games come to Indiana in 2024?

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) - This week, the United States Olympic Committee sent letters to 35 American cities, to see if they were interested in hosting an upcoming Olympic Games.  According to multiple news outlets, Indianapolis is in that discussion.

NewsChannel 15 spoke to the City of Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard's Director of Communications, Marc Lotter, who said the letter had not arrived at the mayor's desk as of Thursday afternoon.

In the letter, the USOC said it is looking for bids for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and was trying to see which U.S. cities were interested.  The committee has more than two years until it must decide which city will make a bid, or if any city will be chosen at all.

The letter also discussed the financial requirement for a host city.

"The staging of the Games is an extraordinary undertaking for any city with operating budgets in excess of $3 billion, not including costs associated with venue construction and other infrastructure," the letter said. 

The letter listed several other requirements:

• 45,000 hotel rooms.
• An Olympic Village that sleeps 16,500 and has a 5000-person dining hall.
• Operations space for over 15,000 media and broadcasters.  
• An international airport that can handle thousands of international travelers per day.
• Public transportation service to venues.
• Roadway closures to allow exclusive use for Games-related transportation.
• A workforce of up to 200,000.

Lotter said the Hoosier capital city doesn't meet all those requirements.

"We don't quite have that many hotel rooms or mass transit," he said.  "Many of our venues, while we have world-class facilities, we don't have some of the venues that are needed."

On Thursday night, two Olympic athletes paid a visit to Fort Wayne to checkout the recently opened Parkview Fieldhouse .  Both athletes thought Indianapolis would make a great Olympic host.

"It'd be kind of cool," said Todd Rogers, an American Olympic volleyball player.  "It'd show a whole different side of America, in my opinion, then one of the coasts.

Rogers won a gold medal at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing.

"I've been to Indianapolis once," said Kerri Walsh, who also is an American Olympic volleyball player.  "The thing that stuck with me was what a sports town it was, and the love of sports, it's pervasive.  I that that's a requisite to anyone who is going to host the Olympics.  They're having the Olympics in 2016 in Brazil.  I think the problems Indianapolis would have are pale in comparison to what Brazil is going to go through, and Brazil is going to do a great job."

Walsh has won gold medals in each of the last three Summer Olympics.

Lotter said the city is flattered Indianapolis would receive consideration, but the city wanted to focus on attracting other large sporting events.  The city hosted the Super Bowl in 2012, and plans to make a bid for the 2018 Super Bowl.  It also plans to host another NCAA Final Four in the near future.

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Parkview Fieldhouse opened in January, and has eight indoor volleyball courts, which can also be used for basketball.

"It's a great opportunity for the youth in the area to be able to come in and work on playing sports, and just have a positive outlet for the area and community," Scott Lauer, an assistant club director for Pineapple SportONE Volleyball Club, said.

Lauer said anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000 different people use the new facility each week. 

Work to the facility began about a year ago.