Christina Gough
Research expert covering sports and video gaming
Detroit Lions - statistics & facts
The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team competing in the National Football League (NFL) in the NFC North division. The team was founded in Portsmouth, Ohio as the Portsmouth Spartans in 1930, before relocating to Detroit for the 1934 NFL season and switching to its current name thereafter. Despite winning four NFL championships in 1935, 1952, 1953, and 1957, the Lions have never won nor made an appearance at the Super Bowl. In 2023, the team made it to the playoffs; however, they lost the Conference Championship to the San Francisco 49ers.
What are the financials of the Detroit Lions?
Under the ownership of Sheila Ford Hemp, the team’s franchise value rose to 3.6 billion U.S. dollars as of 2023. Sheila Ford Hemp succeeded her mother, Martha Firestone Ford, as the principal owner and chair of the Detroit Lions in June 2020. Since then, the team’s revenue increased alongside its franchise value. The revenue of the Detroit Lions reached an all-time high of 495 million U.S dollars in 2022. Despite the team’s increasing revenue, the Detroit Lions ranked near the bottom of the most valuable NFL franchises in 2023. After deducting operating costs such as the payroll of the Detroit Lions, the operating income of the franchise amounted to 51 million U.S. dollars in 2022.How many fans attend the average Detroit Lions game?
The Lions play their home games at the Ford Field stadium in Downtown Detroit. In 2022, the team’s average regular season home attendance totaled 63,423. The cost of attending a Lions game in that year was significantly less expensive compared to most other NFL teams. A family of four could expect to pay around 496 U.S. dollars according to the 2022 Fan Cost Index. This figure was largely due to the average ticket price of a Detroit Lions game, which was just under 92 U.S. dollars in 2022. Meanwhile, the team with the highest average ticket price that year was the Las Vegas Raiders.Do the Detroit Lions have a strong social media following?
The Detroit Lions had a comparatively low social media following in the NFL as of October 2023, with the franchise’s official X page (formerly known as Twitter) recording approximately 1.58 million followers. The New England Patriots, by comparison, topped the list with 4.67 million X followers. When compared to the social media followings of individual NFL players, however, all NFL teams had a significantly smaller social media outreach. Odell Beckham Jr., a wide receiver for the Baltimore Ravens, had nearly 17 million Instagram followers as of January 2023.
