Ncaa To Name New Location Employees Favor New K.C. Site, But Indianapolis Is Enticing

Indianapolis or Kansas City?

While an overwhelming percentage of NCAA staffers keep their fingers crossed for Kansas City, the ruling body of college sports will decide today whose pot of gold in cash and freebies to grab.

Will the NCAA headquarters keep its job base and national prestige in the Kansas City area, where it’s been since Walter Byers opened a two-person office in 1952?

Or will it move to Indianapolis, whose aggressive bid is thought to contain more money but perhaps be less solid?

Today, the winner in a year-long bidding process among almost a dozen cities will be known when the search committee, including NCAA executive director Cedric Dempsey, announces its decision.

If the committee listens to the 250 men and women who work fulltime for the NCAA, Kansas City will be an easy winner. By a margin of about 8-to-1, according to internal surveys, the staff hopes to stay.

“They’ve made it very clear they don’t want anybody talking to the media about this,” said one high-ranking administrator who spoke on condition of anonymity. “But they also know that almost every one of us wants desperately to remain in Kansas City.

“I still can’t believe Ced was willing to put us through this ordeal.”

Edward West, spokesman for an Indianapolis organizing group, said the city’s inventive offer stood at $50 million Friday. The package includes $15 million in pledges from local businesses and $10 million from the Lilly Endowment. The state of Indiana is to provide $10 million in cash and $10 million in non-cash support, according to West. Other government and philanthropic sources would make up the rest.

Indianapolis Mayor Stephen Goldsmith and others pushing his city’s offer said they had no advance word on the choice.

“We’ve always assumed Kansas City would have a slight advantage because the industry is located there. But the two packages are competitive, and there’s strong corporate support here, which helps, so we’re hopeful,” Goldsmith said.

Kansas City, accused by NCAA officials of always taking them for granted, is thought to have a package valued at $29.5 million. Both offers include such things as free telephones, computers, office furniture and other amenities.

But in contrast to its rival, Kansas City can guarantee its money as well as the immediate availability of its proposed new site.

After the NCAA announced its headquarters was there for the taking by any city willing to pay big bucks, about 10 viable offers came in.

The first time Dempsey asked permission of the policy-making Executive Committee to auction off the headquarters, however, the group of college presidents and administrators rebuffed him.

“The decision to vote it down was driven largely by a personal plea … from people who saw great potental for losing staff,” said Patty Viverito, commissioner of the Gateway Conference and an Executive Committee member. “That was coupled with a lot of opinions as to whether it’s a good thing for an organizaton of this sort to put itself up for bid.”

But the next day, Dempsey asked for another vote and got what he wanted.

“It was suggested that just because you study something doesn’t mean it’s ordained that a change would happen,” Viverito said. “… That the NCAA was not putting itself in a good position to negotiate with Kansas City if it didn’t get any leverage.”