Detroit Lions Riding Hype To Primetime Games, Sellouts

While the Detroit Lions have a long way to go to rival the Kansas City Chiefs, their clash with the defending Super Bowl champions to open the NFL season is a small but significant victory for the long-tortured franchise.

Thursday night’s game — on NBC at 8:20 p.m. ET — is one of four primetime showcases for the Lions this season. Combined with their traditional Thanksgiving Day game, that makes five exclusive national broadcast windows that will spotlight Detroit for the entire country — an unprecedented number typically reserved for the league’s best and most popular teams.

The Lions may be the NFL’s newest media darlings, but the hype is being felt at home, too. This summer, Detroit sold out its season tickets for the first time since the team moved into Ford Field in 2002. 

Although the Lions ranked 29th in average attendance last year with 63,429 fans per game, they ranked 17th in average capacity percentage — filling up 98.3% of the 65,000-seat Ford Field.

Money Talks

After narrowly missing out on the playoffs last season with their first winning record since 2017, the Lions are betting favorites to win the NFC North — a feat some Detroit fans may never have thought they’d see again.

For BetMGM, the Lions are one of the biggest liabilities to win the Super Bowl at +2200 — 7% of bets (5^th most among NFL teams) are on Detroit to win the championship. That’s a major increase from the 2022 season, when just 2.2% of Super Bowl futures were on the Lions at +12500.