As the Detroit Lions have risen from the bottom of the NFL to the top, there have been many factors changing within the organization.
One of the biggest changes is the demand to watch the team play on Sundays. Not only are the Lions now a popular primetime choice for TV networks, but tickets to see the team play at Ford Field are also skyrocketing.
This was reflected in the organization’s decision to raise season ticket prices for the 2024 season, which left many fans frustrated after years of little-to-no price increases.
During an appearance on 97.1 The Ticket Tuesday, team president and CEO Rod Wood was transparent about the state of the organization and the demand to see the team play in person. He told hosts Jim Costa and Jon Jansen that despite the increase, many fans still ultimately renewed their tickets.
However, he also empathized with those who were unable to do so.
“I totally get it. I know it was a huge jump in price, but we’d been very cautious about raising prices for the preceding three, four years,” Wood said. “So, we were really in a catch-up mode this year. Also, reflecting the demand. If you go on the secondary market, the cheapest ticket I saw for the Rams game is like $350 in the last row of the upper bowl, which is $100 more than the average ticket price for the whole stadium. There’s still demand out there. I understand it may have taken some people out of the market, but we tried our best we could to relocate them into the seats that were more within their budget and we accomplished that with a lot of people. Still, a 96 percent renewal rate is one of the highest in the NFL. Even with the increase, it was a very, very strong renewal rate.”
During his appearance on the show, Wood also touched on a number of important topics throughout the league. Here’s what Wood had to say about international games, an 18-game schedule, keeping Lions headquarters in Allen Park and why the team will never charge fans to attend training camp practices.
“This year would’ve been the year we could’ve gone internationally, because you’re required to give up one of your extra nine games when you have that. So, we have nine home games this year. I think we were a little bit in the mix for both Germany and Brazil, but the way the schedule came out, it just wasn’t our year, which I’m not all that disappointed about. It’s probably overdue. We’ve not been since, I think 2015 or 2016, we went to London the last time. I would imagine it’s coming. Next year, we could go as a road team, and then I would think in the following year, we’re likely to be going international.”
“That’ll be something we negotiate with the union. I know they’ve started having discussions, and a lot of it could depend on how you adjust training camp. There’s been some discussion about the spring, maybe tweaking that, maybe training camp’s a bit different. You might have more joint practices, because you’re giving up a preseason game if you go that way. I think the other thing is, do we add a bye? I think 18 games, this year we have a bye in Week 5. And, if we were having an 18-game schedule, I wouldn’t want to be looking forward to 14 games. So, you might have 16, 17 games in a row. We were talking internally, it might be something to consider where everyone gets a rotating bye, and then maybe the whole league takes one week off and so everyone has that late-season bye at the same time, which levels the playing field. I’ve not heard any of those discussions, but it seems likely to happen. Certainly would add another game on TV and revenue goes up, players win, teams win.”
“No, we would never do that. This is an experience that hopefully people who maybe can’t get to a game can enjoy with their family. We have enough sources of revenue that we don’t need to charge for training camp. I’d rather have people out here enjoying it and not complaining that we charged them five bucks or 10 bucks, which doesn’t really add up to much anyways.”
“For the foreseeable future. We just did a huge investment in the building again this year. A $4 million enhancement to the training room, which it’s all about player safety and health and getting them back on the field. It’s a great location. We’re a little land-locked, but we’re looking at things we can do around the building. We just announced a brand-new partnership with Meijer to name the facility, which is great. Right now, this is the foreseeable future for us, yes.”
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