5 years of futility: Top 8 sports milestones while the Indiana Fever were below .500
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The long, painful cold streak is over for the Indiana Fever.
A Sunday win over the Dallas Wings gives the Fever 17 wins and 16 losses on the season, marking the first time the team has had a winning record since June 2019.
To lend some perspective into how long the run of futility lasted, here are milestones from eight notable sports that have happened since the Fever was last above .500:
8) Four drivers won the five Indianapolis 500s between 2019 and 2024
Takuma Sato became a two-time winner, taking the checkered flag at the first-ever August “Greatest Spectacle,” delayed three months and run in front of a nearly-empty Indianapolis Motor Speedway because of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.
Helio Castroneves won his fourth 500 in May 2021, joining the track’s most exclusive club. Marcus Ericsson became the second Swede ever to win the event in 2022, and Josef Newgarden became a first-time winner AND a two-time winner, with back-to-back victories in 2023 and 2024.
7) The NASCAR Cup race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway shifted shapes
This NASCAR Cup race had two different formats across three different months and four different names: “Big Machine Vodka 400 at the Brickyard” (2019), “Big Machine Hand Sanitizer 400 Powered by Big Machine Records” (2020), “Verizon 200 at the Brickyard” (2021-2023), and “Brickyard 400” (2024).
6) The Kansas City Chiefs won three Super Bowls…and lost one
The Chiefs scored a total of 103 points across the games, and more than a quarter million people attended the game in person across the five different cities that hosted the big game between 2020 and 2024. That includes the pandemic-limited crowd of fewer than 25,000 at the February 2021 Super Bowl in Tampa.
5) NBA players scored a total of 1,711 across four All-Star games
These points racked up from 2020-2024, including the eye-popping offensive explosion here in Indianapolis in February 2024. The East beat the West, 211-186, with hometown hero Tyrese Haliburton providing many of the highlights, with 32 points and 16 assists.
4) Golfer Scottie Scheffler won big
Scheffler pulled in roughly $95,000,000 on the PGA Tour, along with 13 wins, two Masters green jackets, two Players Championships, one Olympic gold medal, and one Tour Championship – which was secured Sunday evening, just more than one hour before the Indiana Fever finally climbed back above .500.
3) Six different boxers held the coveted title of Heavyweight Champion of the World
Beginning with Andy Ruiz, Jr., Ruiz won the belt in a stunning upset as a fill-in on less than two months’ notice with a TKO of Anthony Joshua on June 1, 2019. At the time, the Indiana Fever were still an optimistic 2-and-1 on the young season.
2) Four teams won WNBA Finals
These wins include back-to-back titles from the defending champion Las Vegas Aces. Five different players won Finals MVP in that time.
1) Four different coaches guided the Fever to a total of 132 regular-season losses against 55 wins
The Fever also drafted 22 players between June 15, 2019, and September 1, 2024. Kelsey Mitchell has played through all of it as a starter and a star, consistently averaging about 20 points per game.
Fittingly, she led the team in scoring in Sunday’s game against Dallas with 36 points.