DETROIT >> Jenny Wagner Kuhfeldt has been attending the Lions’ Thanksgiving Day game since 1991. That was the year her parents were getting divorced, and Wagner and her siblings found themselves with no set holiday plans with Dad. So they decided to take in the Lions’ game against the Chicago Bears at the Pontiac Silverdome.

The Lions beat the Bears, 16-6, and going to the annual game became an annual tradition. She only missed one or two over the years. Even the four years she was living in Milwaukee for work, she would drive in for it. What started as a tradition shared with her siblings, James and Kathy, became a tradition spent with her own kids, Jackson and Rylee.

But this year, Kuhfeldt is skipping it. For the first time, ticket prices are just too high.

“Not this year,” said Kuhfeldt, 54, from New Baltimore. “Way too expensive. We’re going on a European cruise next June, so I’m saving for that.”

The Lions have given their fans plenty of heartburn over the years on Thanksgiving, but this is a new day. Last year, the Lions burst onto the national scene when they fell just short of making their first Super Bowl appearance, and this year, they are 8-1 and one of the top teams in the NFL.

They also have one of the most passionate fan bases, and it’s showing with ticket prices at home, and blue and-silver enthusiasm on the road.

If Lions fans are hoping to get to a game this season at reasonable prices, this Sunday’s game against the Jacksonville Jaguars at Ford Field appears to be the last chance. According to Ticket Smarter, a ticket broker out of Overland Park, Kansas, the get-in price for Sunday on the secondary market was $173, as of earlier this week, and the average price was $554. Prices for the remaining four games at Ford Field skyrocket after that, with the Nov. 28 Thanksgiving Day game against the Bears boasting a get-in price of $391 and an average price of $891.

“Detroit is a hot ticket,” said Jeff Goodman, CEO of Ticket Smarter. “They’re a damn good team, and it’s being reflected in the demand. It’s not always the case.

“Three-hundred-dollar get-ins and those kind of average prices, those are higher than Kansas City.”

The Lions sold out season tickets for the first time in Ford Field history in 2023, and they did it again for 2024, in even swifter fashion, despite a significant hike in season-ticket prices. That’s left most fans wanting to attend games scouring the secondary market, where prices are steep — and that’s before all the fees.

Per Ticket Smarter, the get-in price for the Dec. 5 game against the Green Bay Packers is $300, with the average price of $800; for Dec. 15 against the Buffalo Bills, it’s $360 and $1,055; and for Jan. 5 against the Minnesota Vikings, it’s $271 and $618. Those prices are some of the highest in the NFL for the rest of the season, driven, in large part, by the demand of seeing the Lions, coupled with Ford Field, at a capacity of 65,000, being one of the smallest stadiums in the NFL.

According to a spokesman for StubHub, the Lions entered the 2024 season as the 11th-best team in the NFL in terms of ticket sales, and now they are up to No. 6. The Thanksgiving Day game is StubHub’s fourth-best-selling regular-season game for the rest of the season, across the entire NFL.

Thanksgiving is the Lions’. best-selling home game, 15% higher than their No. 2, the season-opening win over the Los Angeles Rams at Ford Field in a Matthew Stafford reunion and a rematch of last year’s playoff game.

“It’s been good all year,” said Goodman, “and it’s definitely been trending up.”

Lions ticket prices surged a year ago, when they first caught the nation’s attention — but nothing like this. Most tickets for last year’s Thanksgiving Day game averaged less than $500 on the secondary market, according to Ticket Smarter. This year, the demand is off the charts, which isn’t surprising, Goodman said. Demand trends tend to lag by a year, as there’s a slow build in interest and, thus, ticket prices.

Goodman, a baseball fan himself, pointed to ticket trends with the Kansas City Royals and Detroit Tigers, two playoff teams in 2024. There were slight spikes in ticket sales in 2024, though he expects those numbers to be much more pronounced in 2025.

That Lions made the NFC Championship game last season, setting over a fever pitch in Detroit, with playoff tickets for last season’s two home games among the hottest in the NFL. The offseason brought the NFL Draft to Detroit, where record crowds took in the three-day festivities throughout downtown.

According to a spokesperson for Vivid Seats, after the Lions beat the Rams in overtime in the opener on Sept. 8, site traffic to the company’s Lions page spiked 226%; after the road win over the Packers on Nov. 3, it spiked again; and after the comeback road win over the Houston Texans last Sunday, it spiked 168%.

According to Vivid Seats, the Lions are the eighth-most in-demand ticket in the NFL for 2024, with an average home ticket price of $307 — a price that’s 61% higher than in 2023 — behind the Las Vegas Raiders, Philadelphia Eagles, Chicago Bears, Chiefs, Pittsburgh Steelers, Packers and San Francisco 49ers. That ranking and average ticket price are expected to rise as the season — and the Lions’ success — continues.

The Lions’ Thanksgiving Day game is the hottest ticket in the NFL for Week 13, with an average price of $418, per Vivid Seats. (Average prices and get-in prices vary for each secondary ticket outlet, because they are based on each company’s ticket supply.) Also, keep in mind, the prices you’re seeing here are before the fees, which can be substantial. Michigan hasn’t yet joined New York and California as states to pass legislation to make it mandatory to show customers the ticket fees up front.

“Bottom line, it’s a hot ticket, no question,” Goodman said. “You’ve got good numbers. It’s a serious number.”

Of the affordability of Sunday’s Lions-Jaguars game, he said, “This is the last (affordably-priced) game. You need to go.”

Hitting the road

There are other ways to see the Lions, and potentially for cheaper — and that’s on the road. Lions fans have made national headlines this year for how well they travel, taking over some stadiums with their Honolulu blue-and-silver gear and their Jared Goff chants. Against the Texans, they were so loud, they even caused the Texans to commit a false start.

Dan Graef, 42, of Portland, Mich., already had travel plans to visit his father, David, in Houston last week, so he decided to see if he could get some Lions-Texans tickets. He started with the secondary sites, but fees made the price of four tickets astronomical, so he found a private seller and got four seats in the 300 level plus a parking pass for about $900. He took his dad and two sons, Jon, 12, and Grayson, 10.

Grayson was crying at halftime, with the Lions down, 23-7. He was all smiles at the end, with the Lions winning, 26-23, on Jake Bates’ walk-off 52-yard field goal. It was the first Lions’ game for Jon and Grayson.

“It was more about making the memory for my kids,” said Graef, whose father, a Texans fan, estimated the crowd to be 35% Lions fans. “With that huge comeback, I don’t have to worry about them forgetting anything about it.”

Graef and his family flew into Houston last Thursday, and he was stunned to see the majority of the flight was Lions fans. On the flight back to Michigan on Tuesday, it was many of the same passengers.

The Lions are back on the road Nov. 24, in Indianapolis against the Colts, who are 4-6 with fans losing interest. Graef already has been looking at prices for that game and is considering another Lions road trip.

Still, those Colts-Lions ticket prices have even seen a surge lately, with a get-in of about $240 and an average price of $580, according to Ticket Smarter.

“That is really being driven by Lions fans going,” Goodman said.

The Lions also have road games against the Bears on Dec. 22 (a hot ticket, given the proximity of Chicago to Detroit) and the 49ers on Dec. 29 (not as hot of a ticket, yet, with the 49ers at 5-4, and about 10,000 seats available on the secondary market).

As for the Wagners, they hope to get back to the Thanksgiving Day game tradition in future years. For James, 49, of Lenox Township, that tradition typically means a pregame trip to Elwood Bar & Grill, and a turkey leg and a Bloody Mary with the sausage straw at Ford Field.

When the Wagner tradition started in 1991, there were four of them — Jenny, James, Kathy and their dad, Dan Wagner. As they grew up, got married and had kids, there eventually got to be as many as 14 of them going. Last year, with ticket prices slightly on the rise, the group was down to six, including Jenny and her children, Jackson, now 15, and Rylee, now 13. Jackson’s first Lions game was a Thanksgiving Day game when he was 1; that same morning, Jenny found out she was pregnant with Rylee, so Jenny likes to call that Rylee’s first Lions game, too. This year, the Wagner group is down to just two planning to attend: Kathy Ferrier and her son, Gavin, who’s 22 and can afford his own ticket.

“Lions wins only happened a few times while tickets were reasonable,” said James Wagner, Jenny Kuhfeldt’s younger brother. “It’s sad that we can’t afford (to keep) the tradition going.”