The 2025 Detroit Lions schedule is out, and it's pretty awesome on paper. 12 nationally televised games, multiple prime time games, and a couple of holiday ones, too.
Still, I can't help but look at this schedule and feel like the NFL just kicked Lions fans through the uprights a little bit here.
Obviously, Lions fans want their team to get the respect that it has earned, and prime time games and nationally televised games are usually the league's way of showing that. The problem with that is that it comes at the expense of the fans.
If your plan was to sit at home and watch all the games from your living room, this won't be much of a problem outside of having to have a Netflix and Amazon Prime account if you live outside of the Detroit area.
But if you want to go to a game, you're not just going to a regular game anymore. You're going to Monday Night Football, Sunday Night Football, or America's Game of the Week. Having those special presentations attached means the ticket prices are going to go up.
That's a natural part of the game; the better you get, the more expensive the tickets are. Lions fans know this already, but this only adds to the natural and expected increase.
I highly doubt this affects the Lions' attendance. Die hard fans will pay the prices no matter what, but it does kind of suck that they have to right?
Other than that, there's the small inconvenience for some fans of having to wait. This team plays just six 1:00 games this year. Everything else is at 4:00 or later. If you're worried about staying up on school nights, this affects you.
Then there's the obvious Christmas game that some Lions players are not too happy about. I can't imagine every Lions fan is excited to somehow include a football game in their Christmas routines. Even if it is cool to have the whole family together for a game.
At the end of the day, it's not the worst thing in the world. But being a Lions fan is going to cost more money than usual this year. It's just something that you have to cope with.
