The big problem is Ford is making HUGE money on the team, there is a waiting list for season tickets, fans are passionate about the team. This is a big football area (65k at Ford Field, 107k at Michigan, 85k at MSU).
Trust me, we are not douchey or a group of glue sniffers like the Bears fans, we are a pretty cynical group.
As a Detroiter, I have to say Lions fans are most certainly a group of glue sniffers, for exactly the reason you mention - the Honolulu Blue's sterling attendence record. Despite years and years of mediocrity, accompanied by times of cluelessness, and most recently followed by almost incomprehensible incompetence, people do not shut up about the Lions. Ever. Its worse than "da bearz."
It almost falls under the purview of "any publicity is good publicity." People pay
very good money in this town to show up at Ford Field dressed the same color as the empty seats just to boo ex-players and chant "Fire Millen." Then they leave midway through the third quarter. You know what? As long as the Lions are the ONLY operation making the Ford Family money, they are not going to change a goddamn thing. So maybe they'll "lay off" Millen? Unless all the stars and planets align and they put the FieldTurf on pneumatic jacks so the opponent is always playing uphill, the Lions will only ever aspire to mediocrity under the next blockhead they pick to run that sorry operation. That means a playoff win or two in the next 50 years. In the wildcard round. Maybe.
When the Pistons were bad, people did not talk about the Pistons. When the Tigers were bad (and they were
very bad, for a
very long time) people did not talk about the Tigers. They certainly did not pay lots and lots of money for tickets and officially sanctioned merchandise. Hell, they gave that **** away. I remember going to sports camps when I was younger and being given unsellable equipment - Pistons basketballs and Tigers caps. Not with the Lions. People will go into debt to get season tickets. They consider it an "investment." Must be working too, cause I've never heard of anyone starving scalping Lions tickets. Its like Green Bay, except in Green Bay the public owns and to some extent operates that team. Here we indirectly subsidize the production of inferior American automobiles.
Remember when Millen called Morton a "***got" when Morton was on his way out of town? Maybe its just the quality of people I hear football talk from, but it seemed to me people in this area were appaulding Millen on that one. Glue-sniffers every last one of them. The only way people would stop paying attention to this soap opera is if they moved the team.
They are dead to me. D-E-A-D. As a sporting event, they are a sham and as dead as the WWF. I hope and pray that eventually, if enough people do as I do and ignore them, maybe they'll go away.
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