Indianapolis Colts
National Football League franchise in Indianapolis, Indiana
The Indianapolis Colts are a professional American football team based in Indianapolis. The Colts compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) South division. Since the 2008 season, the Colts have played their games in Lucas Oil Stadium. Previously, the team had played for over two decades (1984–2007) at the RCA Dome. Since 1987, the Colts have served as the host team for the NFL Scouting Combine.
The Colts have competed as a member club of the NFL since their founding in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1953, after then-owner Carroll Rosenbloom purchased the assets of the NFL's last founding Ohio League member Dayton Triangles–Dallas Texans franchise. They were one of three NFL teams to join those of the American Football League (AFL) to form the AFC after the 1970 merger. While in Baltimore, the team advanced to the playoffs ten times and won three NFL Championship games in 1958, 1959, and 1968. The Baltimore Colts played in two Super Bowl games, losing to the New York Jets in Super Bowl III and defeating the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl V. The Colts moved to Indianapolis in 1984 and have since appeared in the playoffs eighteen times, won two conference championships, and played in two Super Bowl games; they defeated the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI, and lost to the New Orleans Saints in Super Bowl XLIV.
History
Baltimore Colts
The All America Football Conference began play in the 1946 season. In its second year, the franchise assigned to the Miami Seahawks was moved to Maryland's major commercial and manufacturing city of Baltimore.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Indianapolis Colts” is national Football League franchise in Indianapolis, Indiana. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Indianapolis, Colts and National, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “national Football League franchise in Indianapolis, Indiana” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q193753. VIAF identifies the subject as 123217836. The Library of Congress control number is n85089315. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2008, 1984, 2007 and 1987.
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This entry incorporates text from “Indianapolis Colts” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.