Do the Detroit Lions Have the Best Home vs Away Fan Ratio in Sports?

The level of excitement over the Detroit Lions has never been higher than the 2023 season rolling into the playoffs. The team won their division and hosted two post season games at Ford Field.

During the Wild Card game, the crowd set an indoor stadium noise level record. The atmosphere was just as electric when Detroit hosted Tampa Bay in the Divisional Round.

Veteran ESPN broadcaster Steve Levy was in attendance and made an interesting observation about the noise and the crowd.

There's an interesting pull from that tweet: the 'fewest visiting fans I've ever seen as major sporting event.' That's interesting.

A cliche in sports fandom is 'how well a fanbase travels.' How many of the away team's jerseys and apparel do you see mixed in with the home crowd? In some cases it's a team with a longstanding national following - the Dallas Cowboys, Pittsburgh Steelers or Green Bay Packers. Perhaps you look at the fanbase of a team from a large metropolitan area meaning wherever one travels in the county there's bound to be expat fans of, say, the New York Giants or Chicago Bears.

So what to make of the tweet about the ratio of Lions fans vs Tampa fans? Granted, it's unscientific and simply a single person's observation - though from someone who's been to a lot of major sporting events.

Is the Tampa Bay fanbase one that doesn't travel well? Florida, generally speaking, can be stereotyped as having a non-native population with lots of transplants and a transient nature less inclined to put down roots. Perhaps that makes for a fanbase that is less likely to 'travel well.'

Or it could be that the overwhelming success of the Detroit Lions has brought fans out of the woodwork of the Midwest edging out any Tampa fans who may have wanted to see the game in Detroit.

We'll give the last word on the subject to Detroit radio personality Roxanne Steele who replied to the Levy tweet with this: