Could Milwaukee have hosted a Super Bowl?

Note: OnMilwaukee.com's Doug Russell is in Indianapolis covering Super Bowl XLVI this week.

INDIANAPOLIS -- When Indianapolis was named the host city for Super Bowl XLVI back in May 2008, most media members rolled their eyes and dreaded the mere thought of sleepy, cold, boring Central Indiana as where they would have to go to for the signature showcase of North America's most popular sport. After all, weren't Miami or San Diego available?

Especially considering the logistical disaster Dallas was a year ago, few looked forward to the prospect of a cold-weather city being able to appease the traveling masses that plunk down thousands of dollars apiece to see (and be seen) in a place that around the country no one knows about and even fewer think about.

Typical Super Bowl cities have outside attractions that visitors can go and experience. In Miami, there is the beauty (both natural and man-made) of South Beach; in New Orleans there is the decadence of Bourbon Street. In Tampa, there is Busch Gardens and if you are up for a short drive, Disney World, plus the Gulf of Mexico beaches a short drive away. Several past Super Bowls have been held in Los Angeles; three have been in San Diego. Neither city is in the mix right now because of stadium issues, but there is the inherent draw of Southern California, which includes Disneyland, Sea World, Hollywood, and the San Diego Zoo.

Indianapolis has ... the Speedway?

Beyond that, it's pretty slim pickings when it comes to things to draw people in. But you know what? This is a town that is doing the best with what it has, and has already won over some very skeptical critics.

First of all, the people are exceedingly friendly. Part of that has been the instructions that were handed down to volunteers to end any conversation with "Have a Super day!" My hope, as a fellow Midwesterner, is that the cynics from the East that have descended on the Crossroads City don't punch a smiling face by the end of the week.

After all, even as I was being frisked going into Lucas Oil Stadium Tuesday, the gentleman performing the standard security measure thanked me no fewer than four times in the 15 seconds it took for him to discern that wasn't packing heat.

Media Day usually brings the circus clowns to town, but Tuesday was relatively tame. Sure, there were a couple of Mexican reporters wearing short mini-dresses that that may have been painted on; there may have been some goofball in a superhero outfit; and there may have been a guy that dressed like a player from the 1920s, but there were no wedding dresses, dominatrix outfits, or guys running around in a Miss America sash.

All things considered, Media Day was quite demure. Perhaps the thought of having to wear a heavy winter coat over the top hat and diaper one might have expected from someone trying to top the guy from last year kept some of the idiot masses looking to make a spectacle of themselves at home.

There alone is a benefit of the game being held in Central Indiana.

This week, downtown Indianapolis has been transformed into a Super Bowl village of sorts. All over the city there are tents to keep out whatever Mother Nature may have in store for us. That she hasn't shown us her cards just yet only makes Dallas last year seem more of a fiasco than what we already know it was. But all over the city there are parties and events that budgets of all sizes can afford. What Indianapolis has stressed is that you don't have to have a ticket to the game to experience the Super Bowl atmosphere.

If things had been different years ago, it is not inconceivable that Milwaukee could have been considered for a Super Bowl. After all, if Jacksonville can lure one to their city, why not Milwaukee? If Detroit (twice), why not Milwaukee? If Minneapolis, why not Milwaukee?

But that ship has sailed; the NFL would never allow a city that does not have team to host a game of that magnitude. But what if the Packers had made good on their threats in the waning years of the Curly Lambeau administration to hang their shingle 100 miles south to take advantage of the larger population base? Or, what if another team had already set up shop in Milwaukee years before territorial rights were an issue?

Specifically, what if the Rams had moved from Cleveland to Milwaukee instead of Los Angeles (and then St. Louis)? What if the Cardinals had moved from Chicago to Milwaukee instead of St. Louis (and then to Arizona)? After all, what would they have had to lose? Moving the first time didn't exactly take hold. Maybe Milwaukee was their answer and they just never explored it before it became too late?

Of course we would need a sweet new theatre masquerading as a football stadium for which both our team and the Super Bowl to be played in. As is the case at Super Bowl venues Ford Field and Lucas Oil Stadium (and for that matter, Reliant Stadium in Houston, Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, and University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale), Milwaukee would need at the very least a new(er) retractable roof stadium. After all, the promise of getting a shot to host the Big Game is that carrot commissioner Roger Goodell dangles out there to get municipalities to build new sports palaces.

But unfortunately, the past is the past. Today, to even think that a then-43 year old Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum would be chosen to host Super Bowl I is absurd. Bleacher-benched Stanford Stadium was the site of Super Bowl XIX in 1985, a venue that would be ludicrous in 2012.

"It would be comical to play a game at Stanford Stadium today," Yahoo! Sports NFL writer Jason Cole says today laughing. Cole, who has covered more than 20 Super Bowls and has seen the game evolve from just two teams playing for a championship to the largest cultural phenomena in sports, made that game in Palo Alto his first. "You couldn't do it. No luxury boxes, bleacher seating, no seat backs, it's just comical to even fathom that. And that was only 27 years ago. It's hard to imagine how much it's changed."

The old bleacher stadium that Lambeau Field is, along with the absolute dearth of adequate hotel rooms in the Fox Valley, automatically eliminates the Packers from ever playing host to the NFL's marquee event.

But if the brand-new downtown BadgerDome, home stadium of the Milwaukee Cardinals, were actually standing instead of being fantasized about, it could be us impressing the unknowing world instead of Indianapolis this week.

By everyone's estimate here this week, the initial investment was well worth it, with the economic benefits of hosting the largest annual sporting event in the world measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Hotels are booked; restaurants are full; people are put to work getting ready for the event and then throughout its run.

The entire region buzzes with the sound of cash registers ringing. Already there have been an estimated 200,000 visitors to the downtown area alone, either taking in the NFL Experience at the Indiana Convention Center or just walking around town celebrity-spotting.

In addition, here in Indianapolis, already $154 million has been invested into 21 neighborhoods to spruce them up in preparation for this week. After all, there is no better way to turn off your visitors than to show them areas in decay around town. But after the league leaves on Monday, those neighborhoods will reap the benefits of Super Bowl XLVI for years to come. Also, more than 2,000 trees have been planted in a citywide beautification effort. They will stand for generations and benefit the community every day they are there.

Literally hundreds of women are descending upon Indianapolis this week to donate healthy breast tissue for the Super Bowl Super Cure project. That alone is enough to get behind wanting to host the Super Bowl.

Milwaukee and Indianapolis are strikingly similar. Both are blue-collar, hardworking communities that have a lot to be proud of. Neither is boastful; a sure sign of the modesty that has its roots firmly planted in the Midwest. Both Milwaukee and Indianapolis love their home teams; neither one's win every season so both cities cherish the victories they do get.

If you go back into the rewind machine only to the mid-1950s, before the modern era of the NFL began and considering the league's roots, having a team based in Milwaukee doesn't seem far-fetched at all. After all, if Green Bay could have and sustain a team, why couldn't a city six times its size?

So what would it have taken? Well, some foresight, strong leadership, forward thinking and open minds years ago. After all, that is how we got baseball back in 1970 just five years after the Braves left. What was done for one sport, sadly, was not done for another.

This week, we are seeing the rewards of Indianapolis building the Hoosier Dome - without a team to play in it - and luring the Baltimore Colts to town with it back in 1984. And then, when that building became obsolete 24 years later, they tore it down, expanded their convention center, and constructed Lucas Oil Stadium. The Colts home field of course is the centerpiece for the biggest event this community will have ever seen; no small feat for a place that has hosted the world's most famous automobile race and five Final Four's.

Milwaukee could have been Indianapolis.

Then again, we can't even get a replacement for the Bradley Center built. And we already have that team.

Super.