Why Did The Lions Owner Drop The Name 'Ford' From The Website?

Back in 2020, Martha Ford transferred the Detroit Lions principal ownership to her daughter Sheila Ford Hamp. Now Sheila has transferred her name Ford to the deleted file on the Lions website bio page. Why, who knows, and does anyone really care? It appears many people care and are tweeting up a storm about it.

Who was the first owner of the Detroit Lions? That would be George Richards the owner, at the time, of WJR radio. He bought a team called the Portsmouth Spartans in 1934 for $23,000 and moved the team to Detroit. The $23,000 he paid in 1934 is equal to approximately $487,000.00 in today’s dollars.

The Ford family eventually became the sole owner of the Lions on November 22, 1963, when William Clay Ford paid off all the minority owners to the tune of $4.5 million. Do you remember what also happened on that day? That was the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas Texas. When William Clay Ford died his wife of 67 years. Martha assumed total control of the Lions.

The Ford family had become the sole owner in 1963 for over $4.5 million and today they are worth over $2.4 billion dollars. Not a paid return.

With all the history of the Lions and the Ford name why dump the Ford name?

Rey Del Rio/Getty Images

Perhaps all of the history has quite a bit of losses and they no longer want the Ford name associated with such a losing organization. Starting with the 1964 football season the Lions have won 363 games and lost 512.

The Lions had the NFL's worst attendance record last year. Will they turn that around this year, we will see.

LOOK: The story behind every NFL team name

Stacker delved into the story behind every NFL football team name. Overall team records, also included, are reflective of NFL regular-season games. There are some football teams with well-known nicknames—the Jets, for instance, are often referred to as Gang Green—but we also divulge how some teams’ official names are sparingly used (the Jets’ neighbors, the Giants, are actually known as the New York Football Giants). Sometimes a team name can tell you a lot about local history: The Vikings of Minnesota draw upon the area’s strong ties to Scandinavia, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are dripping in local legend related to Florida’s pirate past.

Let’s kick off the countdown with the folks who earned their nickname by buying boxes of used team jerseys.

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