After their first division title in 30 years, the Lions have increased the price of season tickets in 2024 -- in some cases dramatically. But their costs are still low relative to the rest of the NFL, says team president Rod Wood.
And almost all of their season-ticket holders have already renewed.
The Lions increased ticket prices by an average of 30 percent for the 2024 season, their sharpest spike in years, and select seats in the lower bowl saw an increase of well more than 100 percent.
"I understand the ticket increase was substantial, certainly for lower-bowl seats near the 50-yard-line," Wood said Monday at the NFL owners meetings. "But I think if people went back and looked at what they could have paid for those seats on the secondary market and what our playoff games were going for, it’s really where the market is."
The Lions had an average ticket price last year, when they sold out of season tickets for the first time ever at Ford Field, of approximately $95, second cheapest in the NFL and about half the league average of $186. Their prices have been more or less static over the last several years. With the spike in 2024, which comes on the heels of their best season in the Super Bowl era, the Lions project to rank 18th in average ticket price.
"We’ve had a 96 percent renewal rate, so nobody’s really abandoned their tickets," said Wood. "We still have, I think it’s approaching 20,000 people on a waitlist. We’ve been very cautious over the years recently in not increasing the prices and have really fallen quite a bit behind the league average, and this barely catches us up to just below league average."
Wood said the Lions have "a couple projects underway" to further enhance the game-day experience at Ford Field, with more information coming this spring. The stadium already ranked No. 1 last season in game-day satisfaction and crowd energy level and No. 2 in season ticket member satisfaction in an NFL-wide survey called the Voice of the Fan.
"The stadium was electric," said Wood. "That has a lot to do I think with the on-field performance, but also a lot of things that we do to make it exciting to be in the stadium. I would say the two playoff games were environments like I’ve never experienced before, especially the Rams game when I think the stadium was full an hour before kickoff. That just creates a whole different energy and experience."
Wood added that he's very pleased with the current game-day experience, "but we’ll always continue to try to improve it, because there are choices. You don’t have to come to the game, you can watch it on TV. But I think those that didn’t get a chance to be there in person will want to be there in person because I think they saw something on TV that they wouldn’t want to miss."
The Lions, per Wood, are also "still evaluating" a possible relocation of their Allen Park practice facility. One site under consideration -- and soon to be under construction -- is the I-375 redevelopment area in downtown Detroit that is set to begin in 2025 and projected to be completed by 2027. The redevelopment project features a new six-lane boulevard across the street from Ford Field.
"I know there’s a lot of rumors out there and every time I talk about it, it leads to more people reaching out to me with ideas on where we should be," said Wood. "I would say it’s in the early stage of evaluating it. We’re focused on potentially that, obviously downtown with the 375 project and the impact that’s going to have on the stadium and traffic flow. So we have a real estate consultant who’s working on all those things, but very, very early stages of any announcement on the practice facility."