New Colts license plate to help pay for stadium

INDIANAPOLIS -- Beginning Jan. 3, Colts fans can show their support through a new specialty license plate.\nGov. Mitch Daniels and Colts President Bill Polian unveiled the new plate at the Statehouse just hours before the team was to play host to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday Night Football.\nThe mostly white plate features the Colts helmet and a partial picture of the team's horseshoe logo as a backdrop. The first series of plates will begin with the identifier word 'GO'; other alternatives will follow if the first series sells out.\nThe plates will cost $35, with $20 helping to finance a new Colts stadium and expansion of the Indiana Convention Center and $15 being retained by the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.\nDaniels estimates the plate will bring in about $500,000 annually and said the money might pay for about 1 percent of the stadium and convention center project through the years.\n"It's more about the fun and sense of broad participation than it is about the actual dollars," Daniels said.\nSome symbols and numbers of former and current players will go on auction Tuesday with bids taken through Dec. 16. Minimum bids are $25.\nFour hundred plates featuring the numbers 1 through 100 with the prefixes of 'GO,' 'TD,' 'IC,' and 'OF' will be available for auction. The prefix 'IC' stands for Indianapolis Colts and 'OF' stands for offense.\nPlates with the numbers of 29 players, such as current stars Peyton Manning, Marvin Harrison and Edgerrin James, and former players Jim Harbaugh, Johnny Unitas and Eric Dickerson, also will be auctioned off with abbreviations of their positions such as 'QB,' 'RB' and 'WR.'\nBidding on the auction plates will be done through the BMV's Web site -- http://www.bmv.IN.gov -- and the others can bought on that site and at license branches.\nConstruction work on the 63,000-seat retractable-roof stadium has started, with the $500 million project set for completion by the start of the 2008 football season. That project is slated to be finished by 2010 at a cost of more than $400 million.\nMarion County is paying for the bulk of the project through local tax increases, although some surrounding counties also are funding a portion through new restaurant taxes.\n"In my judgment, (the Colts are) becoming America's team, and not just because of the way they play but because of the way they conduct themselves," Daniels said.