It's a perfect pricing storm in Indianapolis this weekend

JW Marriott Indianapolis

Indianapolis has been gearing up for the Super Bowl 2012 rush, and with super crowds comes super room pricing. The (N.J.) Star-Ledger reports that at this point in the weekend, "the price of a downtown pillow is roughly twice the cost of a ticket on the 40-yard line."

Economy lodgings like the La Quinta Inn outside Indianapolis, and the Quality Inn & Suites in Greenfield, Ind., will be making anywhere from $299 on up this weekend, for rooms that were booked months ago.

The problem, as Indianapolis news outlets have been reporting in the months leading up to this weekend's big game, is that the city is on the small side when it comes to room supply--clocking in with 6,000 guestrooms when the host city status was awarded.

League rules say a Super Bowl host city must have 20,000 hotel rooms within an hour's drive of the event.

However, Indianapolis is the smallest Super Bowl host city since Jacksonville, Fla., which hosted in 2005 amid lots of backlash. Fans recall endless traffic jams, extra hotel rooms on docked cruise ships and no restaurant availability.

Alan Banchand, a partner in a sports hospitality website, told The Star-Ledger another reason room rates went so high so quickly for this particular game match-up wasn't necessarily just a function of supply and demand. It was audience, too.

Fans from New York, Boston and New Jersey "have money" Banchard told the paper. "This is the Wall Street crowd."

The city's hotel developers did prepare for the big rush. The most notable development since Indianapolis won the bid to host Sunday's Super Bowl in 2008 was the 2010 opening of three Marriott select-service hotels at Marriott Place in downtown Indianapolis and the February 2011 opening of the JW Marriott Indianapolis (the largest JW in the world) at Marriott Place. The four properties--all developed by White Lodging--added 2,248 guestrooms to the city's inventory.