When he was 22 years old, Tim Klisz won a coin toss. His uncle Jerry had one extra ticket to the Detroit Lions playoff game against the Dallas Cowboys, and Klisz had a 50-50 chance of beating his brother for the chance to attend the game. That was in 1992, and his brother hasn’t completely forgiven him for it. It was the last time the Detroit Lions played in a playoff game. The last time the Lions won the NFL championship was 1957.
It’s been so long since the Lions won a playoff game that many longtime fans have given up or gone to their graves without seeing a win. Like many others at the playoff game and at home, the Klisz brothers are cheering for lost loved ones, wishing they could witness these long-awaited victories. All over Michigan and the rest of the country as former Michiganders celebrate them, the remarkable playoff run for the Detroit Lions has spurred pride, nostalgia—and a Honolulu Blue wave of sales.
Last week, Klisz attended the Lions’s second playoff game of the season and brought his brother with him. The brothers shouted their hearts out, adding to the record-breaking 134.8 decibel din at the Lions’s nail-biting victory over Tampa Bay to advance to the conference championship. The Klisz brothers cheered in memory of their grandfather, who pᴀssed away in 2007, and their uncle, who died in 1996. Since then, Tim, now 55, has held season tickets his whole adult life
“The watch party in heaven is really crowded,” says Klisz, with “deceased fathers, brothers, uncles, grandpas up there, watching and rooting them on.” Although he wishes his uncle and grandfather could join him at Ford Field, he now brings his daughter to games with him. She wasn’t a huge fan at first, but now, says Klisz, “she has this bright silver outfit that she got at Target.”
She’s not the only one stocking up on Lions merch for the first time. Detroit-based jewelry maker Rebel Nell employs at-risk women to create one-of-a-kind items made from historical artifacts. In 2022, they launched a partnership with the Lions to produce a limited run of jewelry that incorporated fabric from warm-up jackets worn by the Detroit Lions players during the 1950s to 1970s, including the 1957 national championship-winning team.
Amy Peterson, cofounder and CEO of Rebel Nell, says that at its launch, the Lions jacket jewelry line “was met with mediocre success.” But since the red-H๏τ Lions started winning playoff games, “it’s skyrocketed,” she says. Sales have increased 63% over last January, says Peterson, which “can be completely attributed to the success of the Lions. Just to have that piece of history that we’re able to share with the fans, I think, is really special.”
Not all those fans are based in Detroit, either. Plenty of former Michiganders are clamoring for Lions merchandise. And they’re not alone: Sports betting site Bet Online geotagged betting data from more than 60,000 tweets to show that 37 states are now rooting for the Lions to win. On Monday, January 22, the New York Post dubbed the Lions “The Real America’s Team,” followed quickly by Slate, Axios, USA Today, and others
