In May, Indiana was the center of the basketball universe. The Pacers were in the middle of an Eastern Conference Finals run, while the Fever opened the 2025 WNBA season with championship aspirations.
Both teams would fall short of the title, derailed by season-ending injuries to their respective stars, Tyrese Haliburton and Caitlin Clark, but that didn’t take away from their miraculous seasons.
The Pacers fell one win short of the NBA championship, the closest the franchise has ever been to the sport’s mountaintop. The Fever advanced to the WNBA semifinals for the first time since 2015.
Months later, the state’s football teams are among the biggest surprises in the sport.
Colts, Hoosiers on Top
The Colts entered the season with low expectations and a muddy picture at quarterback. The death of longtime owner Jim Irsay in May also loomed over the organization.
Preseason odds forecasted a below .500 finish, and they were 2-to-1 underdogs to make the playoffs for the first time in five years.
Indianapolis decided to bench Anthony Richardson, the No. 4 pick in the 2023 draft, in favor of Daniel Jones, who they signed on a one-year, $14 million deal. Jones appeared to be a stopgap quarterback, playing in his third team in three years after being shipped out by the Giants and landing on Minnesota’s practice squad.
But on Sunday, with Jones under center, the Colts dismantled the Chargers in Los Angeles to move to 6–1, the NFL’s best record. They have a two-game lead over the Jaguars for the AFC South.
“I always knew that we had really good players here and we were just missing something,” Colts receiver Michael Pittman Jr. said after the game, according to ESPN. “And that’s something that Dan brought. … We were just one player away.”
The Colts, at least, had won two Super Bowls and only fallen on harder times in recent years after Andrew Luck’s shock retirement in 2019. Indiana University had been a doormat in the Big Ten and college football generally for decades. When they were ranked this preseason, it was just for the second time since 1969. Last season was also just the fourth time the team finished above .500 in the last 30 years.
The Hoosiers, who play about 50 miles south of Indianapolis in Bloomington, have more than delivered. They are one of six remaining undefeated FBS programs and were ranked No. 2 in the Week 9 AP Top 25, the highest ranking the program has ever received.
The winning comes after increased investment in the team in the NIL era. The Hoosiers have increased their yearly spending on football from less than $24 million in 2021 to $61.6 million last year, according to Knight-Newhouse data.
In late 2023, they brought in head coach Curt Cignetti from James Madison; he has an 18–2 record in his first season and a half with the Hoosiers. Following a 10–0 start in 2024, Indiana signed Cignetti to a new 8-year deal in mid-November that paid him $8.3 million per year with a $1 million retention bonus, among other potential bonuses.
Then, after Indiana beat Oregon and the Penn State job opened, the team signed a new 8-year deal with Cignetti worth $11.6 million per year. This deal runs until 2033.
Three-Year Difference
Just three years ago, all four of the city’s major professional sports teams were in the doldrums of their respective leagues:
- 2022 Fever: 5–31 (last in WNBA)
- 2021–22 Pacers: 25–57 (26th in NBA)
- 2022 Hoosiers: 4–12 (T–11 in Big Ten)
- 2022 Colts: 4–12–1 (29th in NFL)
The renaissance has paid off. Even with Clark largely absent, the Fever led the league in total attendance (home and road), while the Hoosiers set a single-game record of 56,088 fans at Memorial Stadium against Illinois on Sept. 20.
