Are the Fever a dirty team? Indiana occupies surprise slot in new study originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Toughness and intensity always have been defining traits of the WNBA, throughout the league’s 28-year history. But in recent years, players and coaches alike have taken exception to exceedingly-physical play — and referees seeming permissiveness toward it.
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Indiana Fever head coach Stephanie White in particular has had a lot to say about the standard of WNBA refereeing. But a new study shows that the Fever’s reputation as a team that plays to the whistle — and beyond — well preceded White’s return to Indianapolis this year.
The Mercury are the “dirtiest” team — but the Fever aren’t far behind
RotoWire.com used a unique methodology to determine which WNBA team was the “dirtiest” between 2021 and 2025. Their team assessed league foul statistics over the past five completed seasons and weighted them by foul type.
Using this scale, a WNBA team for the sake of the study was given five points for any flagrant fouls incurred, three points for technical fouls, and 0.25 points for personal fouls (seeing as they are the most common type of infraction).
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With a total weighted score of 1,290 points, RotoWire found that the Phoenix Mercury have been the WNBA’s dirtiest team since 2021. They blew away the competition with 106 technical fouls over a five-year span; Diana Taurasi, who spent her entire legendary career in Phoenix, is widely assumed to hold the WNBA’s record for technical fouls incurred in a career.
But the Fever rank third on the “dirtiness scale,” just behind the Dallas Wings — and only the Minnesota Lynx (26) have incurred more flagrant foul calls from referees over the length of the study than Indiana has.
Since 2021, no team has been whistled for more personal fouls than the Fever, at 3,620. And in 2025, only the Connecticut Sun were called for more flagrant fouls than the Fever, who have prided themselves on being tough to play against — perhaps, too tough to play against.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Las Vegas Aces — winners of three WNBA championships in the past four years — recorded the lowest score over the five-year period (not counting the expansion Golden State Valkyries) at 958 points. The New York Liberty, the only team to disrupt the Aces’ dynasty by winning it all in 2024, ranked 10th with a score of 1,003.
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