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Super Bowl no longer ‘right moment’: Lilly shifts Cialis ads, will focus on programs aimed toward adults

As the Indianapolis Colts gear up for a run to next month’s Super Bowl, Eli Lilly and Co. already has decided to watch from the sidelines after two straight appearances during the big game. In a marketing strategy shift, the Indianapolis drugmaker will forgo TV commercials for its erectile dysfunction drug Cialis during the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics, which begin Feb. 10. Cialis competitors Viagra and Levitra may join it on the bench, as the pharmaceutical industry trends…

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SPORTS: The good, the bad and the hoped for in sports

Even with some disappointments sprinkled in (Ron Artest, Purdue football and no state teams in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament), 2005 was an outstanding year for sports in Indiana. But 2006 will be even better. In that vein, we look back, and we look ahead: Best local sports stories of 2005 1) The passing of the funding mechanisms at the state and local levels that led to the Sept. 20 groundbreaking for Indiana Stadium. While Reggie Miller’s retirement from the…

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In the new year, building on the successes of 2005:

This past year was one of the most active and successful in our city’s history. We pushed through legislation to fund an expansion of the Indiana Convention Center and build a new multi-purpose stadium, both of which will be tremendous boons to our region’s economy, pumping in more than $2.25 billion in investment and creating more than 4,200 permanent jobs over the next 10 years. In addition, through the leadership of the governor and legislature, a one-of-a-kind regional funding solution…

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TOM HARTON Commentary: On defense, Republicans get divisive

After Republicans Scott Keller and Lance Langsford broke party ranks at the Dec.19 City-County Council meeting and voted for cop consolidation and an expanded human-rights ordinance, fellow Republican Jim Bradford e-mailed them and questioned whether they were true Republicans. Lately, it’s Bradford and other Republican hard-liners who don’t seem like the Indianapolis Republicans of old. Republicans mayors Richard Lugar, William Hudnut and Steve Goldsmith provided pragmatic, progressive leadership here in the 1970s and ’80s and ’90s. Lugar and longtime Council…

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2006: Making Indianapolis a family affair:

What’s the most pressing issue facing Indianapolis now and in the future? Depending on a pundit’s passion, answers can range from maintaining a professional sports team to supporting the cultural and arts community, from improving the quality of public schools and parks to making affordable housing available, from low taxes to a state-of-the art public mass transit system. Yet each of these areas, while they may reflect an interest group’s unwavering and at times irrational fixation, taken at face value…

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SPORTS: At Rose-Hulman, a great sports story that won’t sell

The Indianapolisbased NCAA generated more news Dec. 19 with the announcement of the new Graduation Success Rate, which measures the graduation rates of Division I studentathletes. The news was predominantly positive. The NCAA is doing a much more accurate job of tracking studentathletes, in particular those who transfer at some time during their collegiate careers. Previous measurements taken by the federal government automatically counted a transfer as a failure, even if that student-athlete departed his first school in good academic…

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Finally, a new stadium, and not just for football:

After years of angling and months of negotiating, city and state officials finally came to an agreement with the Indianapolis Colts to build a $625 million retractableroof stadium south of the RCA Dome. With a drum roll and a crowd of 1,200 fans and dignitaries counting down-three, two, one-Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, Gov. Mitch Daniels, Mayor Bart Peterson and others shoveled a little dirt on the future home of the city’s new stadium in a formal ground breaking Sept. 21….

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A game competitor: Sales surge for maker of Gnip Gnop, What’s in Ned’s Head?

The atmosphere is lighthearted at the westside headquarters of Fundex Games Inc., where ideas sketched on cocktail napkins become award-winning games like What’s in Ned’s Head? and Alfredo’s Food Fight. And why not be happy at a company whose more tasteful games, such as Gnip Gnop and Phase 10, have helped grow revenue from $4.6 million to $20 million in the last decade? If there’s any nail-biting at Fundex it’s because this is the most important time of the year….

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SPORTS: We trusted and got burned; now it’s time to move on

Reaction to the news that a soon-to-be-former Indiana Pacers forward wants to relocate his talents elsewhere reminds me of a scene from the classic cinematic comedy “Animal House.” One of the most noticeable results of a fraternity night out that had gone hopelessly awry was the destruction of a car that character Kent “Flounder” Dorfman had “borrowed” from his brother. As the Deltas surveyed the damage, Eric “Otter” Stratton looked at his distraught fraternity brother and said, “Face it Flounder;…

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GERALD BEPKO Commentary: Don’t underestimate value of teamwork

Any area of human activity can be improved by good teamwork. Teamwork requires leadership, by both those designated as team leaders and team members alike. In sports, as in life, the most valuable player is often not the person who calls the plays. Teamwork is explored in an interesting way in a 2002 book by management consultant Patrick Lencioni titled, “Five Dysfunctions of a Team.” The book is getting renewed attention because of the interest of sports leaders. Seven NFL…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Economy is doing great, but what about next year?

Here’s a question the visually oriented news media face all the time-what does a strong economy look like? Belching smokestacks and humming assembly lines are the clichés of yesteryear, now that we’ve entered an era when knowledge and services account for more output than do physical goods. But somehow the picture of an office worker tapping on a keyboard or a group of executives huddled around a conference table doesn’t quite convey the vitality and power of the world’s largest…

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SPORTS: The season that should have silenced BCS bashers

On a recent Sunday morning, the talking head on ESPN introduced NCAA Division I-AA football playoff highlights by saying, “And now let’s go to the action from where they actually decide the championship on the field.” Ah, how tiresome. How unfresh. How unoriginal. Just another shot taken at the Bowl Championship Series, another regurgitation of the media mantra aimed at the decision-makers in Division I who refuse to enact a championship playoff. So, this year, we must settle for the…

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CHRIS KATTERJOHN Commentary: Guidant scenario recalls ’80s-almost

Last week, I was itching for a fight. When Boston Scientific surprised all but the deepest of insiders with its bid for Guidant, I was suddenly transported back to the 1980s, an era of hostile takeovers so intense it spawned books and movies. Some called it “The Decade of Greed.” Every day there was news of a new hostile takeover or a bidding war or a leveraged buyout of epic proportions. And there were names and personalities to match. Remember…

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Under pressure?: Largest outside shareholder could be pushing Marsh to find buyer

Marsh Supermarkets Inc.’s decision to seek a buyer might not have been made within the company’s Indianapolis headquarters. It might have come from 115 miles away in Cincinnati. That’s home base for the c o m p a ny ‘s largest outside shareholder, A m e r i c a n Financial Group Inc., an insurer controlled by the family of billionaire tycoon Carl Lindner. A source knowledgeable about the discussions said AFG, a Marsh shareholder for more than two…

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SPORTS: Eggs laid in NFL preseason usually don’t hatch

Thoughts about this, that and the other: By the time you read this, the Tennessee Titans may have sprung the biggest upset of the NFL season, rendering some of the discussion moot. Remember, on any given Sunday. That’s why I always say that, in the NFL, every game is a big game. Therefore, that the Indianapolis Colts made it at least into December winning every one of those big games is an amazing accomplishment, especially when you recall the hand…

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CHRIS KATTERJOHN Commentary: Setting an example for Sacramento

“To improve Sacramento, learn from Indianapolis” was the headline of a column in the Nov. 18 Sacramento Business Journal. It’s always nice to get a compliment and some good PR. Turns out a delegation of nearly a hundred Sacramentonians-or is it Sacramentites?-were here in October on a three-day study mission to learn how to become a great city. It was the seventh year in a row for them to make a learning visit to another community. Tom Stallard, head of…

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Industry races to promote itself: Statewide motorsports group hopes to thwart competition from other U.S. markets

Area motorsports leaders are gearing up for another run at unifying the industry and assuring the region retains its status as one of the world’s leading motorsports markets. Organizers of the latest effort promise they won’t spin their wheels this time around. They’re casting a wider net-going statewide with a motorsports association-to attract more members and build more clout with the media, local and state lawmakers, and service providers, such as banks and insurance companies. The Indiana Motorsports Association Inc….

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SPORTS: Final Four director takes readers on inspiring ride

For six years, he was a part-time resident of our city. Believe me when I say Indianapolis was full-time better for it. Not many folks here know this fellow named Bill Hancock, or the integral behindthe-scenes role he has played in the NCAA’s staging of its showcase event, the men’s basketball tournament and the Final Four. I’ll sum it up this way: The NCAA’s tournament manual is about 4 inches thick. Hancock, who served as the tournament director, could quote…

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INVESTING: To do well in market, study sectors’ relative strengths

You’re cool. You wear hip clothes. You get invited to the best parties. You drive the most popular car. Most of the time, you measure how cool you are by looking around and seeing what other people are doing. You don’t want to be the only person at the restaurant or the only one at the game. The same concept is true in the stock market. Investors want to own the hot stocks. A stock gets hot because it is…

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SPORTS Bill Benner: Still haunted by the video clip that won’t go away

It was a year ago on a mid-November Friday night when we had settled into our easy chairs, watching on television as the Indiana Pacers were wrapping up an impressive and statementsending early-season victory over the Detroit Pistons in Auburn Hills, Mich. Then, of course, all hell broke loose and the franchise we had grown up with-indeed, all of the NBA-took a hit harder than any administered in the stands. In today’s mega-media world, few events in sports history have…

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