William Clay Ford became the sole owner of the Detroit Lions in 1964 buying out his partners in the team for 5 million dollars. Since then the Lions have not had much success on the field, and little success in the business world. Ford hired Matt Millen to be the General Manager of this team in 2001 and the team had not had a winning record since. They capped this infamous run off by being the first NFL team to go 0-16 in 2008. However based on how the NFL does business the Lions are not completely worthless.
According to Forbes Sports Money the Detroit Lions are currently worth 917 million dollars. The worth is broken down like this:
• Sport-641 million dollars (70%)
• Market-121 million dollars (13%)
• Stadium-100 million dollars (11%)
• Brand Management-56 million dollars (6%)
Note: Sport: Portion of franchise's value attributable to revenue shared among all teams. Market: Portion of franchise's value attributable to its city and market size. Stadium: Portion of franchise's value attributable to its stadium. Brand Management: Portion of franchise's value attributable to the management of its brand.
The Lions play at Ford Field which was opened in 2002. A look at the stadium details:
Cost to build- 440 Million dollars
Capacity-65,000
Owner-Detroit/Wayne County Stadium Authority
Owner/Chairman- William Clay Ford Sr.
Vice Chairman- William Clay Ford Jr.
President- Ton Lewand
GM- Martin Mayhew
Senior Personnel Executive- James Harris
Vice President Football Operations- Cedric Saunders
Vice President Pro Personnel- Sheldon White
Director of College Scouting-Scott McEwen
Asst. Director of Pro Personnel- Miller McCalmon
The Current Lions Coaching staff:
Head Coach- Jim Schwartz
Offensive coordinator- Scott Linehan
Defensive Coordinator- Gunther Cunningham
QB Coach- Jeff Horton
RB Coach- Sam Gash
WR Coach- Shawn Jefferson
TE Coach- Tim Lappano
OL- George Yarno
Offensive Quality Control- Todd Downing
DL- Bob Karmelowicz
Asst. DL- Kris Kocurek
LB Coach- Matt Burke
Secondary- Tim Walton
Asst. Secondary- Daron Roberts
Defensive Asst. - Don Clemons
Special Team Coordinator- Stan Kwan
Asst. Special Teams- Bradford Bantha
Coordinator of Physical Development- Jason Arapoff
Strength and Conditioning- Malcolm Blacken
Lions on Radio and TV
The Lions’ flagship radio station is WXYT 97.1FM Detroit and WXYT 1270 AM Detroit. Dan Miller is the play by play man with Color Commentator Jim Brandstatter. Tony Ortiz serves as the sideline reporter.
The preseason home of the Lions is WWJ-TV Channel 62 in the Detroit Market. Lion’s regular season games are broadcasted on regionally on the Fox network unless the Lions play an AFC team at home. These games are broadcasted on CBS. The Thanksgiving Day game is broadcasted on Fox or CBS depending on which conference the visiting team is from.
After a few unsuccessful attempts of NFL football based in Detroit, including the Detroit Wolverines who were owned by the city itself, 1934 saw the permanent team come to the city. Then owner of WJR, Dick Richards brought the Portsmouth Spartans and moved them to Detroit. He renamed the team the Lions as homage to the Detroit Tigers of the MLB, he was also reported as saying that the Lion was the monarch of the jungle and he intended his team to be the monarch of the NFL.
Using his radio connections Richards was able to have his team play a Thanksgiving Day home game, a tradition that is still around to this day.
While the Lions won their first NFL title in 1935 the rest of the 30’s and 40’s were not particularly nice for the Lions. After moving their home stadium from University of Detroit Stadium to newly named Briggs Stadium (Tiger Stadium) the Lions were only able to amass 35 total wins in during the 1940’s, after being sold to Fred Mandel.
Eight years later Edwin Anderson led a group of local businessman that took control of the franchise. This group included Ralph Wilson and William Clay Ford Sr. In 1950 the new ownership group traded for QB Bobby Layne.
This trade sparked the best decade in Detroit Lions history, during the 1950’s the Lions won three more NFL titles, after the third of which they traded l
Layne to the Pittsburgh Steelers. As he was leaving town Layne said that the Lions would not win for 50 years. Thus the curse of Bobby Layne was born.
In 1959 Ralph Wilson left the team to pursue team ownership of an AFL team, and in 1961 the Lions named Ford sr. President. Two years later Ford bought out his remaining partners for 4.5 million dollars. Thus began an ownership reign of 46 years that has only seen one playoff victory.
The rest of the 1960’s and 1970’s were pretty much unnoteworthy for the Lions. They played their last outdoor home game at Tiger Stadium on Thanksgiving 1974. Over 50,000 fans showed up the stadium that day fighting the snow and the cold and to see the Denver Broncos beat the Lions 31-27.
The 1980’s were also unremarkable for the Lions making the playoffs, in 1982 and 1983 with star RB Billy Simms. After the 1984 season Simms suffered a career ending injury the Lions would not finish a season with a winning record the rest of that decade.
In 1989 the Lions drafted RB Barry Sanders, and a new era of the Lions began. After becoming a star by 1991 the Lions were poised to make a deep post season run. Even though they were blown out on National TV 45-0 by the Washington Redskins, the career ending injury of Guard Mike Utley brought the club together and they eventually made it all the way to the NFC Conference championship game, again losing to the Redskins.
While the Lions made the playoffs in 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, and 1999 the only real highlights of those years were of watching Sanders run like no one else in the league could.
By 2001 Ford turned control of his team over to one time TV broadcaster Matt Millen. Thus began the Millen era of futility for the Lions. After his first draft Millen proved inept at finding NFL talent in any round of the NFL entry draft. During his reign, which came to an end during the 2008 season, the Lions were only able to compile a record of 31-81 heading into 2008.
Of course in 2008, with a team constructed by Millen, the Lions became the only NFL franchise to go 0-16 and the only the second team to go winless in a season. Millen was fired during the season and control of the Lions was turned over to President Tom Lewand, and GM Martin Mayhew.
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