Big Economic Impact Expected From US Olympic Swimming Trials Come 2024

INDIANAPOLIS — In two years, the country’s best in swimming will descend on Indianapolis for the U.S. Swimming Trials to be held inside Lucas Oil Stadium.

It’s a huge get for the city which hosted the trials at the IU Natatorium from 1992 to 2000 before the trials were moved to Omaha, Nebraska. In coming back to Indianapolis, Shana Ferguson, the chief commercial officer of USA Swimming, said it was an easy decision.

“There’s something poetic about us coming back 100 years later from the 1924 trials that name the team to head to Paris,” Ferguson told Inside Indiana Business. “There was something lovely about us doing that again.”

Before the stretch in the 90s of hosting the trials, Indianapolis hosted the 1924 trials as well at the old Broad Ripple Park Pool, which at the time was the largest outdoor pool in the United States.

Ferguson said they fielded bids for the event from several other cities, including Omaha, but that Indianapolis was at the forefront from the very beginning. Now the event will likely mean a big economic impact for the city when the time comes.

“The meet itself will last nine days and nine nights,” said Ferguson. “That’s a long time for a swim meet. So, there will be plenty of other things for the fans coming in for the meet to do.”

The event will include three portable swimming pools to be set up inside Lucas Oil Stadium and there will also be a fanfest type atmosphere in the areas surrounding the stadium as well as inside it. The 2016 Omaha trials were the last trials held with fans before the pandemic. That event drew around 200,000 people generating $74 million in economic impact.

Ferguson hopes that the event will spur more interesting swimming among people in the immediate region around Indianapolis.