The NFL Scouting Combine is one of the biggest events in the entire offseason on the NFL calendar, and it has been in Indianapolis for nearly four decades, but that is subject to change.
The current contract for Indianapolis, with the venues being Lucas Oil Stadium and the Indiana Convention Center, runs through the 2026 offseason, meaning they are guaranteed to host the 2025 and 2026 NFL Combines. After that, however, it is a mystery.
Will the Combine Actually Leave Indianapolis in 2027?
It could be the case — even though the current contract is set to run through the 2026 NFL Combine, the league actually started allowing other cities to bid on hosting the NFL Combine in 2021.
This is similar to how teams bid on hosting the Super Bowl and the NFL Draft as well, with New Orleans and Green Bay, Wisc., serving as hosts in 2025, respectively, and they also required Indy to start submitting a bid as well.
At the 2024 NFL Combine, the league hosted officials from Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Nashville, Tenn., and Phoenix, but the league won’t announce anything official this week at least, just stating that they are focusing on making sure the 2025 and 2026 NFL Combines are each run successfully.
The NFL Combine will have been in Indianapolis for 38 years in 2025 and has become one of the tentpoles of the NFL offseason, with NFL teams meeting in Indy.
Despite free agency still being a couple of weeks away, the NFL Combine is where agents first start to speak to each other to discuss what future deals might look like, making the event the fertile grounds in which league-changing moves are born, even beyond the NFL Draft. If any blockbuster trades happen, the terms of that deal will likely have started at the NFL Combine.
As of right now, both Houston and Minneapolis have expressed specific interest in hosting, per Front Office Sports, but they also made it clear that their primary interest is not the NFL Combine in terms of hosting major NFL events.
Officials from Houston sent the NFL a statement of interest in hosting the NFL Combine in 2029 and 2030, but their first interest is hosting another Super Bowl, which they last hosted in 2017, the infamous “28-3 game” between the New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons.
As for Minneapolis, it is primarily focused on hosting the NFL Draft but has expressed interest in hosting the NFL Combine as well.
Either way, Indianapolis is holding out hope that it will be able to keep the event, but it will certainly be a story to follow as the NFL Combine has unofficially become the start of the NFL Draft season and free agency with NFL teams and fans alike.
