Mad Ants to Boom: Inside the rebrand of the Pacers’ G League team
A new home, a fresh name, and a nod to Bobby "Slick" Leonard — Pacers Sports & Entertainment unveils the Noblesville Boom, the rebranded identity of their G League affiliate.
For nearly two years, Pacers Sports & Entertainment (PS&E) worked on a major transformation. On May 8, 2023, they made a surprise announcement: the Fort Wayne Mad Ants would be relocating 100 miles south to Noblesville, Indiana.
That decision set off a multi-phase project — from designing and building a new arena to launching a full team rebrand.
This week, the team was officially reintroduced as the Noblesville Boom — a short, punchy name that pays tribute to the late Bobby “Slick” Leonard and his iconic catchphrase: “Boom, Baby!”
“The Noblesville Boom name also reflects the loud, fast-paced basketball the team brings to the court as well as the energy and growth of the Noblesville community,” the team said.
It’s rare for a franchise to hit reset so completely — new city, new arena, new name — but that’s exactly what’s happening here.
To learn about how it came together, I spoke with Todd Taylor, the President and Chief Commercial Officer of PS&E. He’s been with the company for 14 years this June, and is thrilled about the final result here.
“Once you get the name out there, you can really start to build the rest of the game experience, the brand, and the assets,” he said. “And that's the fun part. It’s great to come up with the logos and all that. But until you bring them to life, they're really just nice images on a piece of paper. And now we'll be able to start getting into the Noblesville community.”
Honoring the Past, and Moving On From Mad Ants
Two key G League trends influenced the change: relocating teams closer to their NBA parent clubs and aligning branding more closely with them.
G League rules require affiliate teams to play roughly 20 miles outside of their NBA arena. The Boom will continue using the Pacers’ practice facility, as they have the past two seasons, but will now host games about 27 miles away from downtown Indianapolis.
The Mad Ants recently completed their 18th and final season under that name. The Pacers purchased the team in 2015, and while the “Mad Ants” brand had a strong local identity — named after Revolutionary War general “Mad” Anthony Wayne — it no longer made sense after leaving Fort Wayne.
“The Mad Ants name was perfect for Fort Wayne,” Taylor said. “When we made the decision to bring the G League team a little bit closer to the home base in Indianapolis, we knew that we wanted to rebrand.”
During the transition, they played as the Indiana Mad Ants while construction began on The Arena at Innovation Mile, a new 3,400-seat, 123,000-square-foot arena that they will use for home games. It is scheduled to open this summer — “On time and under budget,” Taylor added, echoing comments from Noblesville Mayor Chris Jensen.
“It's an incredible building,” said Taylor, who was up there this week. “When we first started this, there were all sorts of ideas of what this building would be. Noblesville, with its fast-growing community, wanted to make it certainly a basketball building, but also additional use for the city, including concerts and shows and those types of things.
“But the end result is we're going to have what I would consider the best G League building in the league and will certainly be one that I think people start to copy off of.”
Indiana Mad Ants' close Fieldhouse chapter, honor Steph Hicks’ legacy
The Indiana Mad Ants were given a road-heavy schedule to conclude another NBA G League Schedule. Their home finale on Monday is just their only home game over a three-week stretch.
What’s In A Name?
Once the arena plans were in motion, PS&E began narrowing down names. One thing Noblesville Mayor Jensen ensured in the contract is that the city’s name would be included.
“That was an important part for us,” he told me previously. “That is locked in stone.”
The team name has been almost two years in the making. They started with about 400 names on a board, then narrowed it down to six or seven before they settled on one.