Eight Days in March, Seven Nights to Hold
The NFL Scouting Combine stays in Indianapolis in 2027 and 2028. The league announced the extension on January 21, 2026, and Indianapolis has hosted the event every year since 1987. The 2027 edition runs March 1 to 8 at Lucas Oil Stadium and the Indiana Convention Center, a Monday-to-Monday span of eight days. A Monday arrival with a Monday release on March 8 is seven nights, March 1 through March 7, with checkout on the morning of the 8th.
That calendar is the first number a club or media group needs. No organiser allotment, no group code and no contracted rate is published for a group to join. The group builds the hold itself, and the hotel prices it against a week that sells on its own.
What Indianapolis Can Hold
The venue counts 7,100 hotel rooms in downtown Indianapolis, with 4,700 connected to the convention centre by skywalk and 15 minutes to Indianapolis International Airport. Those figures are the venue's own.
The grouprooms.org directory lists 273 hotels in Indianapolis. The platform publishes one request to 50 or more properties at once, cover across 46 states, savings of 15 to 40 percent off rack rates and no fee to the organiser. Those are the company's own published figures.
The convention centre is why the event stays. Prospect meetings, athletic testing, medical evaluations and media availability all run from one building, and Visit Indy executive vice president and chief business officer Chris Gahl named the convention centre expansion and new downtown hotel inventory as reasons the league kept the week in the city.
Sizing the Hold Before the League Moves On
The week has a hard stop after checkout. The league's negotiation period opens at noon Eastern on Tuesday, March 9 and runs to 3:59:59 p.m. on Thursday, March 11. The 2027 league year and the free agency signing period begin at 4:00 p.m. Eastern on March 11. The franchise tag deadline falls on March 3.
The gap is new and short. The 2026 cycle left a full week between the Combine and free agency. In 2027 one day separates them. Every room decision on a club's desk has to be settled before the club's attention turns to contracts.
That timing argues for a release schedule in the contract. Blocks, a room-block software vendor, publishes rolling review dates at 90, 60 and 30 days out, which let a group hand back rooms it can see it will not fill.
The week also moved. The 2026 Combine ran February 23 to March 2, so a group building from last year's pattern is a week early on every date, every cut-off and every release review.
The Attrition Clause
Attrition is the clause that costs money when pickup misses. The vendor's guide measures the floor at arrival on a cumulative room-night basis, with a floor at 80 percent or below, damages net of the hotel's saved costs, and credit for rooms the hotel resells. Its own worked example is a three-night block of 100 rooms a night, which commits 300 room nights and sets a 240-room-night floor at 80 percent. A pickup of 210 room nights leaves 30 short, and at the guide's contracted rate of $189 that shortfall costs $5,670.
Watch the measuring stick, because a cumulative test can hide one weak night. Keep a seven-night hold of 25 rooms a night: 175 room nights committed and 140 on an 80 percent floor. A pickup of 120 room nights leaves 20 short on the cumulative test. A per-night floor of 20 rooms reads the same pickup as 40 room nights short, because the last three nights miss by 10, 12 and 18. At $189 that difference is $3,780 against $7,560.
Pickup Tracking Through the Week
Track the block night by night from the day it is signed. Club staff, medical personnel and media do not book on one date, so a flat hold assumes a curve that does not exist. Ask the hotel for a pickup report on a fixed day each week and for the name of the contact who owns that report.
The 2025 Combine produced a record $9.26 million in economic impact and drew more than 30,000 visitors and fans. Those are citywide numbers rather than a group's own pickup, and they explain why a hotel will rate the week firmly.
Questions to Put to the Hotel
Ask for the minimum hold, the cut-off as a specific calendar date rather than a day count, whether the floor is measured per night or across the stay, and the review dates at 90, 60 and 30 days. Ask whether the last two nights can be released first. Ask for the rate on all seven nights, the deposit schedule, and master-account routing with the right to review the folio before payment. Ask what the hotel expects to sell into the week after checkout, because a hotel with demand behind the group has less reason to hold the line on attrition.
