Indianapolis faces tough field in bid for 2018 Super Bowl - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

This year's Super Bowl in New Orleans will long be remembered in large part because of the power outage. Right after the second-half kickoff, the lights went out in half of the Superdome.

Like fans everywhere, Jeff Price of Indianapolis was wondering what the heck happened.

"I had a little chuckle, half the lights were out and everything stopped, there was a lot of confusion," he said.

It was no doubt one of the last things the New Orleans Host Committee expected or wanted to see, especially after the power remained out for a very long 34 minutes.

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It's been the talk of sports TV, football fans and those wanting to see the Super Bowl return to Indianapolis.

Dave Hornak, general manager of Scotty's Brewhouse downtown said, "It would have been horrible (if it happened here), but it didn't."

Hornak felt New Orleans' pain, but not overly so. New Orleans is one of eight cities, including Indianapolis, hoping to host the 2018 Super Bowl.

"I'm sure that didn't help their cause last night," he said. "I'm sure that's something the NFL is gong to look at - an old stadium versus a new stadium."

Like Hornak, bartender Kelley Morgan wants the game back here in a big way...and last night she was thinking two things.

"For one, hurry up. I wanted the Ravens to win and they did and, in the back of my head, I'm thinking dollars signs. Please bring it back. Yeah, it's good for our city. We need that," Morgan said.

"It was amazing. We did five weeks of volume in a ten-day span," Hornak said.

While Indy won widespread praise for its job hosting last year, it faces stiff competition. Minneapolis and San Francisco will likely tout new stadiums. Then there's Dallas, which can pack in 100,000 fans. But Dallas also had that big, bad ice storm, something Indy was prepared for - but never had to worry about.

Simon Ghaim, general manager of the downtown Hampton Inn thinks what happened in Dallas and New Orleans could help Indy.

"It definitely shows they weren't as prepared as we were," Ghaim said, adding, "we've shown what could be done in Indianapolis and we couldn't certainly do it again."

And ask Kelley Morgan if she feels sorry for New Orleans?

"Not at all," she laughed. "They get the nice weather, so not at all. I was not feeling sorry for them."

Allison Melangton, who led last year's Super Bowl and is leading the 2018 bid, returns from New Orleans Monday night. Melangton was on a "fact-finding" mission and getting specs on the future game. She will share her observations on this year's game and where Indy is in process for 2018 during a news conference Tuesday morning.