Lucas Oil Stadium aglow during Sunday night game

It was Indianapolis’ time to shine last night during the Colts’ prime-time match-up against the Patriots. And did it ever shine.

The loud speaker announcer at the game urged people to get to their seats at least five minutes before kick-off so the stadium would look as lively as possible when NBC went live from Lucas.

Bob Costas waxed poetic about the beauty and grandeur of the stadium. NBC beamed city-scape shots, including one of Victory Field with a huge horse shoe shining brightly in the outfield, to millions of people nationwide.

I’m sure if Joyce Julius had taken a monetary measurement of the TV exposure Indy received from the game it would have been in the multi, multi-millions of dollars. I'll let you know later today (as soon as I  get the numbers from Nielsen) what the TV ratings for the game were. I expect they'll be huge.
 
Lucas Oil Stadium was aglow last night—literally. In fact, all that positive exposure—for a couple minutes anyway—went up in smoke.

After the Colts drew first blood during the first quarter, the pyrotechnics gurus at Lucas Oil Stadium reined fireworks down on players in the end zone and caught the expensive artificial turf on fire.
 
It was so bad, more than a few fans at the game thought Colts running back Joseph Addai’s injury was due to fireworks to the face. Luckily it was only mangled fingers—not firework related.

First mouse excrement, now this. The stadium game-day crew may need to review the game video more than Peyton Manning.

NBC showed a nice close-up of the turf burning brightly in several locations. Costas mused about the fervent display of fireworks. Fans at the game saw towel boys and trainers running out onto the field with water bottles to douse the flames.
 
Then the smoke cleared.

Peyton Manning engineered two scoring drives in the last four minutes of the game, with the crowd at the stadium as loud as any in the RCA Dome.

Losing Patriots Coach Bill Belichick skulked across the field to give one of his patented warm and fuzzy handshake to Colts Coach Jim Caldwell.

And all was right in the world—or at least in Indianapolis.