FORT WAYNE – The weather gods will charge more next time. Fair warning, Indianapolis.

The weather gods, savvy market hounds that they are, will jack their rates like the only mechanic in Miles O’ Empty, N.D., considering all that 60-degree business they graced us with in February. Shirt-sleeve weather for a Super Bowl? In the home of the wind chill and the wintry mix?

That ain’t gonna come cheap, bucko. Just sayin’.

Just sayin’, look, it’s all well and good for Indianapolis to throw its cap in the ring again for the 2018 Super Bowl, but it shouldn’t be done without a stiff belt of reality to wash it down. The unshirted truth is, they hit the lottery with the weather in February, and everyone – including the NFL – knows it. That the city did everything else with such ease and flourish will get it another Roman numeral one of these days, but likely not so soon.

“Let’s do it again,” was a bravura sound bite for Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard on Wednesday, and lord knows he earned the right to it. But understand that “again” is an elastic concept, especially where the NFL is concerned. It might be in 2018, but it might be in 2020 or 2022 or 2024, too. You never know with Roger Goodell and the boys.

What we do know is you can’t execute a Super Bowl better than Indianapolis did, and if the nation was astounded by that, nobody here was. This is a city that’s used to the big stage, having played host to all those NCAA Final Fours and women’s Final Fours and U.S. Grand Prix. And, of course, the Indianapolis 500 every May, which is only the biggest one-day sporting event in the world.

So no shock for me that, of the three Super Bowls I’ve covered, Indianapolis was the most hassle-free. Absurdly so, almost. We parked the car, we hopped the shuttle, we went through security in, like, five minutes.

Eventually we reached our seats in the auxiliary press section high above one corner of one end zone – where, at every spot, a reading light was installed for those times when the lights would go down in Lucas Oil Stadium.

They didn’t miss a trick, these people.

But they’ll probably miss 2018.

Sometimes you go with your gut on these things, and the gut says 2018 will be too soon for the NFL to choose another (normally) cold-weather city. Not after New York, 2014. And likely not before Minneapolis, because the Vikings are getting a new stadium and the NFL loves to reward cities that come across with new digs.

It’s how Dallas got the Super Bowl in 2011, after all. And, make no mistake, it was a big reason why Indianapolis, with the Luke, got 2012.

And 2018?

Unless Indianapolis signs up for that cool new Virtual Aruba app, the League’s probably going back to Miami first. Or Atlanta. Or maybe even L.A. if all those dreamers who’ve been saying for two decades that the NFL’s coming back again (soon!) turn out to be right.

Sure, Indianapolis. Let’s do it again.

Just make the check out to “Global Warming Inc.”