The commitment behind the week
The NFL Scouting Combine has been held in Indianapolis every year since 1987. The league announced on 21 January 2026 that the event remains in the city in 2027 and 2028. The agreement in place before that announcement was set to expire after the 2026 Combine, which ran 23 February to 2 March at the Indiana Convention Center and Lucas Oil Stadium.
The league's calendar of 2026-27 dates lists the 2027 Combine as 1-8 March at Lucas Oil Stadium. Both dates fall on a Monday. The ask is a seven-night Monday-to-Monday stay inside a city that has held the event for four decades.
What the venue publishes about its own room stock
The Indiana Convention Center prints a standing block on every page of its site. Downtown Indianapolis holds 7,100 hotel rooms. Of those, 4,700 connect to the Convention Center by skywalk. The center also prints 200 downtown restaurants within walking distance and 15 minutes to Indianapolis International Airport.
The venue hotels page reads that more than half of downtown's 7,100-plus hotel rooms sit within blocks of the Center and Lucas Oil Stadium. The skywalk figure is 4,700 of the 7,100, or about 66 percent. The remaining 2,400 rooms sit outside the skywalk connection.
That split is the leverage. A buyer holds 4,700 rooms inside one walkable system and 2,400 more beyond it. No single property owns the week.
The Signia enters the February inventory
The venue announced on 21 April 2026 that the 800-room Signia by Hilton Indianapolis is accepting reservations for stays beginning 1 February 2027. The notice describes a new-build property, the tallest hotel in the city and the Center's newest headquarters hotel, with direct skywalk access to the Center and access to Lucas Oil Stadium and Gainbridge Fieldhouse. It sits on the Georgia Street pedestrian promenade in the Wholesale District. The City of Indianapolis owns the hotel. The Capital Improvement Board of Managers of Marion County leads operations.
Eight hundred rooms is about 11 percent of the 7,100 downtown total. No published source states whether those 800 rooms sit inside the 7,100 or outside it. Carry the two numbers in the ask as separate figures.
The published rate base and the walk-away
No source checked publishes a nightly rate for Combine week. Engine publishes the citywide base: 128 dollars a night across 1.2 million public rate observations from May 2024 to April 2026. February averages 107 dollars, which is 16 percent below the city average and the lowest month in that dataset. May is the high month at 158 dollars, and the same page states a 32 percent swing across the year.
Seven nights at the February figure come to 749 dollars before tax. Seven nights at the city average come to 896 dollars. That 147 dollar spread is the money a February stay already saves before any negotiation starts.
Set the walk-away below 749 dollars before tax, which is below 107 dollars a night. Engine states that its figures are par rates, meaning the cheapest publicly available price at the time of a live search. The same page states that negotiated corporate rates sit below what it shows. A group offer at 107 dollars a night has therefore not moved.
The par rates exclude local taxes. Add the Indianapolis lodging and sales taxes to any figure before you compare it with a hotel quote, and ask the property for a rate inclusive of tax.
The ask, in order
Open with the commitment and the supply. Name the 7,100 downtown rooms, the 4,700 skywalk-connected rooms and the 1-8 March window. Then ask for the seven nights at a nightly figure below 107 dollars inclusive of tax.
Ask for the cancellation terms in the same message. Ask whether the rate holds if the league moves the week. Ask for the same figure at a second skywalk-connected property, because 4,700 competing rooms give the first property a reason to answer.
What to put in the request
Send the ask through a channel that reaches several properties at once. hotelhaggle puts one request in front of 50 or more hotels in the destination and takes group requests from 10 rooms a night, with some properties from 5. Responses arrive inside 24 to 72 hours at no charge to submit. The platform states that it adds no markup, that the buyer pays the hotel directly, and that its reach is 103,857 hotels across 46 states.
The platform also states that state law restricts name-your-price booking in Florida, Hawaii, Iowa and Washington. Indiana is not on that list.
The 2025 Combine produced a record 9.26 million dollars in economic impact and drew more than 30,000 visitors and fans, on the Colts' account. That demand arrives after the February window a buyer prices in.
