How much money do the Detroit Lions owe you?
That’s not a serious question, of course − the fan-to-team relationship is typically a one-sided financial transaction. But one writer has measured that potential payout, anyway.
James Bisson of sports betting site Covers has released his Fan Compensation Index, a (mostly) humorous look at what NFL teams would owe their fans in restitutions for theoretical class-action lawsuits.
Bisson makes his calculations off a “grievance score,” a measure of a fan base’s “emotional damage” based off factors like expectations, media coverage and injuries. He then assigned $10 per fan per point of grievance score, coming up with the payout.
As a reminder, this is not a serious legal exercise.
So, which team came out on top? Perhaps unsurprisingly, the “winners” are the Dallas Cowboys, who according to Bisson owe each of their fans $1,850 for emotional damage suffered during the 2024 season. If that payout were to go to each of their 4.9 million Instagram followers, the total payout would come out to around $9.25 billion, or around 72% of their total valuation.
Remember, this is not a serious legal exercise.
The Lions, perhaps surprisingly, come in at No. 26 in Bisson’s rankings with an average fan payout of $307. That comes out to a total payout of $614 million to the team’s around 2 million Instagram followers, money that (we can’t stress enough) you will not be seeing regardless of how poorly the Lions played in their Week 1 loss against the Green Bay Packers.
But if you want to spend about $300 yourself on the Lions, that’ll get you a ticket in the upper deck to the team’s home opener against the Chicago Bears at Ford Field on Sunday, Sept. 14.
You can reach Christian Romo at cromo@freepress.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Do the Detroit Lions owe you money? A (not) serious look at fan restitution
Reporting by Christian Romo, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
