Lions-Buccaneers showdown set to ignite $20M economic surge for Detroit
Susan Tompor, Detroit Free Press
Updated 10 min read
Sunday's upcoming Detroit Lions divisional round playoff game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers is projected to generate tens of millions of dollars in economic impact in Detroit. But all the excitement will add far more sizzle to the momentous NFL draft in Detroit in April, too.
As freezing cold as it is, and it is brutal, downtown Detroit is set for one sensational week of spending.
On Sunday at 3 p.m., we're looking at the hottest ticket in town to see the Lions host the Bucs in the divisional round of the 2023-24 NFL playoffs.
A Detroit Lions fan cheers from the stands during the third quarter of the wild-card round of the NFC playoffs against the L.A. Rams at Ford Field in Detroit on Sunday, Jan. 14, 2024.
"Southwest Florida is coming to Detroit this weekend," said Chris Moyer, senior director of communications and public affairs at Visit Detroit, which works to promote metro Detroit as a convention, business meeting and tourism destination.
We only wish these two Florida teams would bring some of their weather.
"It's going to be electric down here on Sunday afternoon, that is for sure, with all the Lions fans on top of the Red Wings fans. Detroit is going to be the place to be for sports fans," Moyer said.
When it comes to economic activity, fans tend to spend big money, especially local fans when they're excited about winning and representing the D. They don't tend to stop at just a $25 or $40 T-shirt.
Each Lions home playoff game is expected to fuel $20 million in economic activity in Detroit, Moyer said.
The projections are based on data that Visit Detroit has seen for the number of people downtown, number of people at the game, hotel occupancy, and activity at bars and restaurants, Moyer said. When looking at the Lions playoff games, he said, the projections do not include ticket prices in that calculation.
The $20 million calculation is just for Detroit, not for the region. Moyer tried to do a projection for the whole region but he did not have a "high confidence interval on the data for the region" because more restaurant and bar data was needed, which takes a long time to generate.
The economic impact of the Lions-Tampa Bay game Sunday continues to be another $20 million, following the win against the L.A. Rams. But Moyer acknowledged that it could be larger, given the enthusiasm and significance of the game. The Lions, after all, could get yet another step closer to the Super Bowl.
"As Lions fans and visitors come downtown before the game," Moyer said, "their spending at restaurants, bars, hotels, parking lots, retail, and other businesses creates a dynamic community environment."
East Lansing-based Anderson Economic Group put an even bigger number that exceeds $52 million for the net economic impact in metro Detroit of Sunday's game against the Bucs.
Anderson Economic Group calculates that attendee expenditures will have a direct economic impact of $31.65 million and the game would have an indirect impact of $20.57 million.
The company's methodology takes into account substitution effects that occur when consumers choose one event over another. The calculations also include "an allowance for the portion of gate revenue captured by the NFL and other entities. The total includes attendee expenditures both inside and outside of the stadium, including the portion of those that travel to Detroit for the game and stay in hotels. Revenue from TV and broadcast rights is not included."
Patrick Anderson, CEO of the consulting firm, said he personally remembers the last time the Lions won a playoff game.
“I’m happy to hear the roar again," Anderson said in a statement, "and I’m also happy that Detroit is getting a $50 million weekend due to the event.”
Anderson said he's confident that the economic gains are closer to the $52 million estimate than the $20 million estimate.
Anderson said his projections include money spent on tickets, food and drink, extra merchandise and hotel stays for some. "We also deduct some amount for direct unavoidable costs, and also adjust for substitution," he said.
Direct unavoidable costs take into account the actual cost of goods sold, including the cost of providing services. Such costs should be deducted to avoid exaggerating the impact, Anderson said. For example, there's the price a fan pays for beer and the actual costs associated with providing it for sale.
"Most of that benefit comes right into the city of Detroit, with some also going to the rest of Wayne County and close-in suburbs," Anderson said.
The economic gains go beyond the weekend, he predicted.
"Americans like winning sports cities, and Detroit is a fabled town for its Tigers and Red Wings," Anderson said. "Adding the Lions to that — and getting our downtown the prime-time exposure it deserves — is going to be worth more in the future."
I asked California economist Christopher Thornberg for his take on the economic impact on the Detroit playoff game ahead, and he concluded that he'd feel that $20 million might be closer to reality. But he doesn't have a solid number. The Los Angeles-based consulting firm does many economic impact studies for events, including concerts, but not many for individual sporting events.
He calls $20 million a pretty mild number in general, given the overall size of an economy in the metro area.
The total gross domestic product — the output of goods and services — for the Detroit-Warren-Dearborn metro area was $305.4 billion in 2022, according to the U.S Bureau of Economic Analysis and Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
Judging the additional spending that any event can stir up can be extremely tricky. If you're buying tickets to a Lions game, for example, you're not spending money for tickets for the Red Wings game or the "Champions of Magic Show" at the Fisher Theatre on the same day. Or you're not going out to brunch in Troy or Royal Oak at the same time you're at a football game at Ford Field in Detroit.
"If people choose to do one thing, they don't do something else," Thornberg said. "At some level, we all have to acknowledge, you're moving pieces around the chess board."
Thornberg, who says he is a Buffalo Bills fan, said a stronger economic impact to Detroit could be from Tampa Bay fans who "grudgingly go to Detroit" and spend money that they would have spent in Florida or elsewhere. Outside media, TV crews and others will travel here to work.
"You do have a bunch of money coming into town," Thornberg said.
He said there's definitely some upside but it's hard to know how much it will offset the downside when local fans aren't spending their money on something else. He maintains that the economic impact of sports stadiums can be highly overexaggerated in general.
Much depends, Thornberg said, on how much money is drawn into the area from those living elsewhere. Many times, he'd argue, concerts, like the massive Taylor Swift "The Eras Tour," can offer a bigger boost than a playoff game because more people could have more time to plan a trip to another town to attend a once-in-a-lifetime concert.
It's important, he added, to recognize that the Lions playoff games in Detroit have intangible benefits. A winning sports season can have a big upside in bringing a community together, he said, and generating pride in the city.
"It isn't just about the dollars and cents," Thornberg said.
Madonna is runner-up to the Lions
We've already seen some incredible events on the calendar for just one week in January — and there's more to come.
The Detroit Lions beat the L.A. Rams 24-23 at Ford Field on Jan. 14, generating an estimated $20 million in economic impact. The Lions ended a 32-year playoff victory drought.
Madonna performs at Detroit's Little Caesars Arena on Jan. 15, 2024.
And then, the next evening, Madonna brought her Celebration Tour to Little Caesars Arena, just down the road from Ford Field, on Monday. The megastar gave shoutouts to the Detroit Institute of Arts and Menjo’s, the Detroit gay club where she got her first taste of nightlife as a teen in the 1970s, according to Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum's review.
"People don't understand how cool you've got to be, to be from Detroit," Madonna told the crowd.
Visit Detroit didn’t do an economic projection for the Madonna concert, Moyer said. Based on the conservative projections using an event economic impact calculator, he'd put the number at around $9 million to $10 million for the Madonna concert. Ticket prices are included in the calculation for concerts.
The Detroit Pistons, which are in the middle of one of the worst seasons in NBA history, have a Wednesday night game scheduled against the Minnesota Timberwolves and a Saturday afternoon game against one of the best teams in the NBA, the Milwaukee Bucks.
"Detroit is going to be the place to be for sports fans," Moyer said. All four Detroit sports teams play within a half a mile of each other.
Some 65,000 people will attend the second-round Lions playoff game at Ford Field on Sunday. Thousands more will watch the game at bars and restaurants throughout the city, as they did with the game against the L.A. Rams.
"Additional economic activity happened after the game on Sunday when people poured out of the stadium to celebrate," Moyer said.
This spring, he said, the economic impact for Detroit hosting the NFL draft is expected to exceed $100 million and could approach $200 million.
"We anticipate hundreds of thousands of fans coming to southeast Michigan and Detroit for this festival of football," Moyer said.
Detroit is in the football spotlight now — and that's bound to build enthusiasm among fans in Michigan, as well as other states.
"The Lions' success will have a positive impact on the attendance of the NFL draft," Moyer predicted.
The better the Lions do in the playoffs, of course, the lower the pick they will have in the draft. But Moyer said the playoff run for the Lions increases excitement and interest in the team, and the NFL Draft in the city.
"More than 300,000 people attended the draft in Kansas City last year, and the majority of them were Kansas City Chiefs fans coming to celebrate their city and their team," Moyer said.
Putting it in perspective for non-sports fans, the NFL draft will have a far greater economic impact on Detroit than the Taylor Swift Eras tour last June. The two Taylor Swift concerts at Ford Field on June 9 and June 10 generated $87 million in economic impact for the city, according to Moyer. But that economic impact includes ticket sales. Some 120,000 concertgoers saw Swift in person over two days last summer in Detroit.
Swift remains omnipresent during the NFL playoffs, of course, as she's rocking her custom Travis Kelce puffer jacket and cheering for her boyfriend and the Kansas City Chiefs.
