Fort Wayne Mad Ants

The Fort Wayne Mad Ants are an American professional basketball team of the NBA G League, located in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The Allen County War Memorial Coliseum is the home venue for the team. The team is the first minor league basketball franchise to play in Fort Wayne since the Fort Wayne Fury of the Continental Basketball Association. The Mad Ants won their first D-League championship in 2014. In September 2015, the Indiana Pacers purchased the Mad Ants and became the Pacers' one-to-one Development League affiliate.
History.
In April 2007, the NBA Development League (D-League) announced it was expanding to Fort Wayne in 2007–08 season. The franchise held a name-the-team contest on their website where fans could vote on one of the four finalists: "Lightning", "Fire", "Coyotes", and "Mad Ants". The winning name of "Mad Ants" was chosen as a salute to the city's and fort's namesake, General "Mad" Anthony Wayne.
For the 2007–08 season, the Mad Ants were affiliated with the Detroit Pistons and Indiana Pacers. The Pistons were founded in Fort Wayne by industrialist and piston manufacturing company owner Fred Zollner as the Zollner Pistons, before moving to Detroit in 1957. The Mad Ants added the Milwaukee Bucks as their third affiliate for the 2008–09 season. The Bucks were previously a parent club for the Tulsa 66ers until Professional Basketball Club, LLC (owner of the Oklahoma City Thunder) purchased the 66ers to be Oklahoma City's exclusive affiliate.
In 2012–13, the Mad Ants, in addition to their affiliations with the Pistons, Pacers, and Bucks, were also affiliated with the Charlotte Bobcats.
In 2013–14, the Mad Ants made it to the D-League Finals for the first time with a 126–118 victory over the Sioux Falls Skyforce, winning the second round series 2–0. The Mad Ants defeated the Santa Cruz Warriors 2–0 in the Finals series to claim their first D-League title. Following that season, the Mad Ants were affiliated with the remaining NBA teams that did not have exclusive affiliates, after the Phoenix Suns and the Orlando Magic associated with the Bakersfield Jam and the Erie BayHawks respectively, and D-League teams were created for both the Detroit Pistons and New York Knicks.
In September 2015, Pacers Sports & Entertainment (PS&E) purchased the Mad Ants, thus making the team the Pacers' one-to-one D-League affiliate. Brian Levy was named general manager by PS&E. In 2017, the Mad Ants changed their colors to navy blue, gold, cool gray and white, the same colors as their parent club, the Indiana Pacers. Also in 2017, the Developments League was rebranded as the NBA G League following a sponsorship deal with Gatorade.
The Mad Ants were featured in the 'MyCareer' mode in NBA 2K19, a basketball game developed by Visual Concepts and published by 2K Sports.