Black and Gold

Lore & Background

The Pacers' black-and-gold palette dates to the franchise's ABA founding in 1967, when the team was one of the league's original eight clubs. That early identity—sleek, confident, a little defiant—carried through the 1970 ABA Championship, the franchise's only title, and survived the 1976 merger into the NBA. The colors became a badge of local pride in a city that, for much of the twentieth century, was told it was a footnote on the map. Wearing gold in Indianapolis was a small act of defiance, a way of saying this place mattered. The Fieldhouse itself became a character in that story. Built in 1974 in the middle of downtown, it was one of the first arenas designed to put fans close to the action, and the Pacers' home atmosphere grew into something genuinely electric. By the 1990s, with Reggie Miller anchoring the team, the building had developed a reputation: the loudest, most punishing road destination in the Eastern Conference. Opposing players spoke of the crowd's roar as a physical force, the black-and-gold sea of jerseys turning the court into a fortress. The rivalry with the Chicago Bulls sharpened that identity further, and the 1995 playoff series against the New York Knicks—crowned by Miller's eight-straight free throws in Game 5—cemented the Fieldhouse in basketball mythology. Through lean seasons, title runs in 2012 and 2019, and every stretch in between, the black-and-gold culture has held. It is not a culture of perfection; it is a culture of loyalty. The fans in the Fieldhouse do not need a championship to feel the weight of the colors. They need a squeak of rubber on hardwood, the thump of a dunk, and the sound of ten thousand people in Indianapolis choosing, again, to be Pacers people.

In Their Own Story

The lights are still warm-up amber when the first fans trickle in, and the smell hits you before the sound does—fresh-cut pine under the court, the faint sweetness of concession popcorn, the cool mineral tang of the arena's ventilation system cycling to life. A kid in an oversized black jersey with a gold number that doesn't match any current player—maybe a retired one, maybe one his grandfather wore—taps the glass railing on the upper concourse and watches the floor crew tape down the last scuff marks. Somewhere in section 114, a woman in a gold scarf is already arguing with her husband about the starting lineup, her voice carrying the particular music of someone who has been doing this for thirty years. Two rows back, a teenager records the warmup on his phone, not because he needs to, but because the moment the ball bounces and the sneakers shriek, he wants proof that the house is alive. It always is. The black-and-gold sea fills row by row, a slow tide of loyalty, and when the first tip-off cracks through the air, the Fieldhouse doesn't just get loud. It breathes.

Reader's Guide

You can smell it before you see it: that sharp, clean scent of freshly waxed hardwood mixed with the faint ozone tang of the jumbotron screens warming up, and underneath it all, the ghost of a thousand popcorn carts. That's the Fieldhouse. That's home. You walk in through the main concourse and the first thing you notice is the black. Not the soft black of a suit, but the deep, absorbing black of the wall panels, the seat backs, the trim around the court. And then the gold cuts through it—piping on the jerseys, the logo on the floor, the banners hanging in the rafters catching the overhead lights and throwing little halos down onto the court. The sound is the thing that gets you. Not the roar—that comes later, with the first big stop, the first swish. It's the murmur. Ten thousand people shifting in their seats, the creak of the stadium chairs, the low hum of the PA system testing itself, the distant clink of a cup on a plastic table. You've heard that murmur a thousand times. You still stop and listen, because it sounds like a city holding its breath before a story it already knows but wants to hear again. And when the ball drops and the sneakers bite the floor, the whole building exhales. Black and gold, every seat, every row. Your house. Your colors. Your Pacers.

Did You Know?

• The Pacers' only championship in franchise history came in the 1970 ABA Finals, when they defeated the Kentucky Colonels.
• Reggie Miller's eight consecutive free throws in Game 5 of the 1995 Eastern Conference Semifinals against the New York Knicks remains one of the most iconic playoff moments in NBA history.
• The arena that is now the Gainbridge Fieldhouse opened in 1974 as the Market Square Arena, making it one of the first modern indoor sports venues built in the American Midwest.
• The Pacers were one of the eight original franchises of the American Basketball Association when the league launched in 1967.