INDIANAPOLIS – Lucas Oil Stadium has held three Final Fours in college basketball. But never anything like this:

Final Four atmosphere for nine straight days.

That is what Indianapolis can supply in June 2024 for swimming’s first U.S Olympic Trials held in a football stadium.

“After basketball, it’s a swimming state,” Lilly King said.

One hundred years after a Broad Ripple trials selected a team for the Paris Olympics, another Indianapolis trials will select another team for another Paris Olympics.

Formal announcement of the trials being awarded was made Tuesday morning by Mayor Joe Hogsett at a Lucas Oil Stadium news conference. Other finalists were Omaha, St. Louis and Minneapolis.

“To do it in an NFL stadium is going to be historic,” said Tim Hinchey III, president and CEO of USA Swimming.

To assert Indianapolis has a long and strong association with USA Swimming would be understatement.

About the bid: Indianapolis expected to win bid to host 2024 U.S. Olympic swimming trials

“A lot of times I go out there, and people think we’re based there,” said Hinchey, whose organization has headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo.

He said it was "a dream come true" for USA Swimming to hold its trials at such a venue.

Co-chairmen of the local organizing committee are Scott Davison and Karin Sarratt of OneAmerica. Davison recounted the state's history with the sport, including the Indiana University dynasty built by Doc Counsilman in the 1960s and '70s.

"We can rightly say, I believe, that Indiana has for the last 100 years been the crossroads of swimming in the United States," Davison said. "That history is rich and deep.

"We're going to create something that has never been seen before for a swim meet."

Indianapolis’ proposal was for seating capacity of 30,000 to 35,000. Layout would resemble last year’s Final Four, with two 50-meter pools and a 25-meter pool in place of basketball floors.

The pandemic limited attendance in 2021 at Omaha. In 2016, also at Omaha, biggest crowd for a single session was 14,502. So Indy could more than double that.

In 2016, the economic impact on Omaha was $74 million, according to the Indiana Sports Corp. More than 36 million TV viewers watched live coverage on NBC.

Ryan Vaughn, president of the Indiana Sports Corp., said it would take three to four weeks to assemble pools in the stadium. A pre-trials test event is planned, as are a spectator "Aqua Zone" and youth swimming meets.

USA Swimming and the Indiana Sports Corp. are committing $400,000 to legacy projects for increased access to water for children in under-served areas around Indianapolis.

“It’s not just what happens in the arena,” Hinchey said. “It’s also what we can do outside the arena.”

King, 25, an Evansville native, won eight NCAA titles, all in breaststroke, at IU. She famously won two gold medals at the 2016 Rio Olympics, earned three more medals at the Tokyo Olympics, and has held the world record in the 100-meter breaststroke since 2017.

She has not committed to continuing through the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, so 2024 could be her last trials.

King has been part of the Indianapolis bid, filming a promotional video. She said swimmers like the city because they have been here so often and are familiar with downtown.

King said her mother swam in the first high school state meet held at the Natatorium at IUPUI, and her first age-group meet was there.

"I was dead last in all of my events," she said.

She has been here so often, she said, Indianapolis feels like home.

"My whole life, every time I drove in on West Street, saw Lucas Oil Stadium, I get butterflies in my stomach. And I did today," she said. "Because that meant I was going to swim at a fast meet, usually at the Nat. Or just stopping early here.

"I get to swim here next time."

Indianapolis last held the trials at the Natatorium in 2000. Since then, the trials have been in temporary pools accommodating more spectators. The trials were outdoors at Long Beach, Calif., in 2004, and in an Omaha arena in 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2021.

This will be a record seventh trials f Indianapolis. The city previously held the event at Broad Ripple in 1924 and 1952 (women only), and 1984, 1992, 1996 and 2000 at the Nat.

More: Why Indiana produces so many Olympic swimmers. 'This is just the beginning.'

Elkhart’s Lindsay (Benko) Mintenko made her first Olympic team at Indy in 2000, and she ended her career at Indy by winning three medals in the 2004 short course worlds inside then-Conseco Fieldhouse. The city is a “special place for me,” said Mintenko, the first female executive to lead USA Swimming’s national team division.

“It’s a great way to showcase our sport and our athletes,” she said.

Five Indiana high school graduates made the U.S. team last year, second only to California’s seven. Two others, Bloomington-based pros Zach Apple and Annie Lazor, won medals at Tokyo. The state features other rising young swimmers in the mix to make it to Paris in 2024.

Although the Natatorium is only 40 years old, it is to this sport what Wrigley Field is to baseball or Lambeau Field to football. The tradition extends to names on the wall drawn by a calligrapher of those making Olympic teams.

For instance, Michael Phelps, at age 15, made the first of his five Olympic teams at the Natatorium in 2000. Organizers’ intention is to continue such a tradition, adding names from those making it at Lucas Oil.

Hinchey said the Natatorium is a possible site for the 2023 world team trials, an event that could thus create momentum for 2024.

There will be a World Championships in June 2022 at Budapest, Hungary, and in July 2023 at Fukuoka, Japan. The 2022 world team trials are April 26-30 at Greensboro, N.C.

Contact IndyStar reporter David Woods at david.woods@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidWoods007.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indy will host 2024 U.S. Olympic Swim Trials at Lucas Oil Stadium