Is a new Detroit Lions logo enough of a change for their fans?

April 23, 2:34 PMSports Business ExaminerJosh Lobdell

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The Detroit Lions have a new logo AP Photo/Paul Sancya

The challenges facing the Detroit Lions are coming to a head in this the week of the 2009 NFL draft. This is a team that just completed a 0-16 season, lost money in 2008; they have an apathetic fan base, and are based in city and state facing the highest unemployment rates in the entire country.

Simply put the Lions needs a complete overhaul or they risk losing a significant portion of their fan base for many years to come. Another Detroit Sports team, MLB’s Detroit Tigers, faced a similar situation to this one when they were the worse team for much of the 1990’s. The Tigers had to build a new stadium and ultimately make it to a World Series before the fans were ready to take them back; the Lions are now in a worse situation than that.

This is the worse team in the NFL, and quite possible has been the worst run sports organization over the last ten years. It seems that a logo change is a move that is too little too late for this team. It also seems that the Lions would have benefited more by preparing for the upcoming draft over making rather superficial changes to their logo.

Simply put this is not going to get he job done. Drafting a new face of the organization this Saturday will provide a much bigger boost to this team’s fan base. That is of course if the Lions organization can finally get the draft right, something they have failed to do in recent years.

The Lions unveiled their new logo and uniforms this week to their fans and were greeted with chants of don’t draft Stafford, a chant designed to influence the Lions out of drafting Georgia QB Matthew Stafford. These outbursts seem to prove that a new logo and uniforms is not change enough for Lions fans.

If they Lions draft Stafford anyway, they could easily put the entire franchise into economic peril. Beyond further eroding their standing with their fans, Stafford will easily require a contract worth 60-70 million dollars with 40 million of that as guaranteed money.

Since there is a good chance that Stafford will not work out, recent studies have the success rate of first round QB picks at 30% or so, the Lions are risking a fan anarchy on the scale of which they have never seen.

I am not referring to people coming to their stadiums with signs calling them out, or calling them stupid, I am talking about fans not coming at all. On top of that I am talking about fans not tuning into Lions radio and TV broadcasts as well.

It is this simple if the Lions cannot get better there are far better things for Detroiter to spend there ever shrinking paychecks on. If the Lions get this wrong that is what Detroiters will surely do.

It is really too bad that the Lions are in such a sad state. If they were in a better condition they could be the leading force towards a Detroit economic turnaround.

The Lions have ten football dates at their Detroit home of Ford Field (including preseason games). On average a home Detroit Tigers game generates 1.45 million dollars in direct and indirect economic benefit to the Detroit’s economy.

Since no study has been done on the impact of the Lions home gems we now have to make several assumptions. Ford Field sits around 20k more fans then Comerica park, and football tickets cost more and are more highly sought since there is a limited supply of them. We are talking 10 games in the NFL compared to 81 home games in the MLB.

These numbers world seem to suggest that a sold out Lions home game would have a higher economic impact then the 1.45 million generated by Tiger home games. Since the pre season games are always lightly attended let us through those away. Let’s deal with eight regular season home games, if the Lions were good and could sell out Ford Field for all eight games they would generate at least 11.6 million dollars in economic benefit for the Detroit economy.

That might not sound like a lot but remember Detroit is a city with a 300 million dollar budget deficit, so every couple million dollars could provide a huge benefit for the city and its residents.

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