Detroit Lions' franchise value surges alongside buzz around the team

Business is certainly booming for the Detroit Lions. They will get the showcase game to open the season against the Kansas City Chiefs. Season tickets have been sold out for the first time in the Ford Field era, and preseason games have been attended as if they are regular season games. Presumably, without knowing for sure, sales of Lions' apparel on sites like Fanatics are pretty good.

Earlier this month, Sportico reported NFL franchise values for 2023. Every NFL franchise makes a lot of money, and even the Washington Commanders under the now (mercifully) completed reign of Dan Snyder couldn't mess that up.

Recent sales of the Denver Broncos ($4.65 billion) and the Commanders ($6.05 billion) show the rise in NFL franchise values just over the last handful of years.

Detroit Lions' franchise value surges in parallel to buzz around the team

Sportico outlined the criteria for determing the value of each NFL team.

"NFL franchise valuation, derived from metrics by which football-team transactions occur, including aggregating local and national revenues and factoring in a team-specific multiplier. This represents the market value of the team itself, excluding related businesses held by its owners. It includes the value of each franchise’s 3.13% interest in the league’s properties, including NFL Network, NFL RedZone and its digital platforms, which are acquired/dispossessed in tandem with the sale of a team."

- Sportico

The Lions only climbed just one spot from last year to this year, to 30th. The raw value of the franchise, per Sportico, increased from $2.86 billion in 2022 to $4.1 billion now. That 43 percent surge in value year-over-year was the highest in the league, with the Cincinnati Bengals and Las Vegas Raiders (each at 41 percent) the only others at 40 percent or better. Seven more teams had value increases of at least 30 percent.

The Ford family is surely not motivated to sell the Lions right now, and fans aren't calling for it anymore. But the franchise's value has increased like it, presumably, never has from one year to the next.