By John Ketzenberger

Indy Eleven President and General Manager Peter Wilt dropped by the St. Joseph County Courthouse in South Bend on Monday, the 78th courthouse he’s visited in two years as a Hoosier.

Before leaving South Bend he dropped by an old Merchants National Bank branch, the site of John Dillinger’s last bank robbery less than a month before the outlaw was gunned down outside Chicago’s Biograph Theater in July 1934.

“I’m a history guy and I do like old courthouses,” Wilt said. “I think you can tell a lot about a community from courthouses and cemeteries.”

And you can tell a lot about a man by his curiosity. Wilt’s is on overdrive and that’s good for his new soccer squad. The local side has sold out its home games, developed a rabid fan base and exceeded the lofty expectations of owner Ersal Ozdemir.

The business of soccer in Central Indiana looks much brighter than all but Wilt, Ozdemir and a handful of others expected—and the team’s only halfway through its inaugural schedule. It shouldn’t be a surprise given the success Wilt has had in building and running soccer clubs, including his lauded stint with Major League Soccer’s Chicago Fire.

Yet Wilt’s career was stalled after the Fire’s new owner cleaned house in 2005. He had a series of posts at startup teams in Milwaukee and Chicago. He stayed connected to the sport by tapping his sportswriter’s background for a blog and podcast, too, but nothing stuck until Ozdemir tapped him to study whether Indianapolis was ready for a professional team.

Ask him about it and the fast-talking Wilt mumbles and changes the subject, again to history. He tells a story about how the club’s name can be attributed to Donna Schmink, collections manager for the Indiana War Memorials, “who probably has never seen a soccer game.”

She told him about Indiana’s 11th Infantry Regiment organized by Lew Wallace during the Civil War, which resonated since soccer has 11 players. Then Wilt will tell you about the Blacherne Apartments across Meridian Street from the World War Memorial and how Wallace used proceeds from “Ben Hur” to finance their construction.

He just can’t help himself, but it does explain why the guy from Chicago who broke into sports management with the Milwaukee Admirals minor-league hockey team (boosting attendance from 2,200 a game to 9,000) can crash Indy’s influential circles. Wilt is curious, smart and motivated — a powerful combination of traits for any endeavor.

After studying the market for Ozdemir, Wilt believed the city was ripe for professional soccer even though previous efforts had failed. “It would not have happened five years ago,” he said, “but now people can’t wait to watch it.”

It’s happening in the already crowded sports marketplace, Wilt said, because three important demographic categories have matured here and the Eleven have tapped two of them well.

The first is the millennials, people who are 18-35, who make up about a third of the Eleven’s crowd at a game. These are people who play the popular FIFA video game and watch professional soccer games at bars. “Soccer is cool with them; it’s aspirational with these kids,” Wilt said.

Grown soccer kids or people with kids who play soccer make up the second-biggest segmentof the Eleven’s crowd. This is the fast-growing demographic of young, mainly suburban families who spend weekends at soccer parks all over Central Indiana or on traveling teams across the Midwest.

The third demo, the one the Eleven is still working to penetrate, is the region’s ethnic population that accounts for maybe 10 percent of the home crowd. Most of these folks are soccer fans given the sport’s international popularity, so their loyalties are fixed at the game’s highest levels. “We just have to help them expand their view,” Wilt said.

Wilt has marshaled a hometown crew to run the Eleven, people with a lot of experience here who can tap their networks to get business done. Only he and one other executive of the 15 top managers don’t have significant experience in the local market.

“When I put the staff together I wanted to hire as many locals as I could,” Wilt said. “My successors in Chicago let a lot of the top lieutenants go after I left and replaced them with outsiders.”

The Fire’s success stalled. It’s no secret people who believe in what they’re doing, who want to make something happen for their hometown team, will work hard to make it happen.

The big crowds at Carroll Stadium, otherwise dubbed “The Mike,” didn’t just materialize. Wilt and staff spent nearly two years courting fans, whether it was the rabid Brickyard Battalion or more casual soccer nuts.

“I had some street cred from my earlier experience,” Wilt said, “but I was still doing breakfast, lunch and dinner appearances for a year.”

The breakfast and lunch groups were five or 10 people, the dinner groups maybe 20, and then he’d visit service clubs and the like with up to 50 people in a crowd. This built strong awareness and word-of-mouth endorsements, which translated to ticket sales this spring.

Wilt’s experience and immersion into the local scene (he can tell you where to find good grilled cheese or breaded tenderloin sandwiches) has won over Hoosiers who tend to be leery of outsiders.

“I had to show I really cared and that I like this town,” Wilt said. “I hope people like what I’m doing.”

The stadium packed with rowdy fans would seem to indicate they do like what he’s doing. And Wilt’s looking forward to visiting the rest of Indiana’s 92 county courthouses with a swing through southwest Indiana — after one of the team’s World Cup viewing parties.

Wilt just doesn’t miss a trick.

John Ketzenberger is president of the Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute, a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization to research state budget and tax issues. Email him at jketzenberger@indianafiscal.org. Follow him on Twitter: @JohnKetz.