Detroit Lions 2025 Attendance Rankings Have Fatal Flaws

The Detroit Lions not only took a step back on the field in 2025, failing to make the playoffs for the first time since the 2022 season. They also, in fact, experienced a decline in attendance at Ford Field.

After drawing the 12th-most fans at home in the NFL in 2024 (584,300), that number dipped to 27th this past season (516,719).

Detroit only outdrew the Washington Commanders (514,362), the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (509,124), the Arizona Cardinals (508,197), the Philadelphia Eagles (489,153) and the Chicago Bears (465,014) in 2025. Meanwhile, the Dallas Cowboys (743,934), the Denver Broncos (687,500) and the Kansas City Chiefs (661,146) drew the league's most home fans during the regular season.

Your 2025 NFL regular season home attendance returns 🏟️

(via PFR) pic.twitter.com/Y7dZjvTjEt
— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) January 28, 2026

That total number of fans isn't truly as bad as it sounds, though.

It's because Dan Campbell's team still managed to draw roughly 64,590 fans/game to each of its eight home contests in 2025. And that figure equates to 99.37 percent of the maximum capacity at Ford Field (65,000).

With that said, the Lions were one of 17 organizations which hosted eight games in 2025 instead of nine. Additionally, every NFL stadium has a different max capacity. Those two factors certainly impacted the total number of patrons that visited Ford Field during the past season.

Now, when looking at the total number of fans that attended games at Ford Field in '25 based on the percentage of seats filled, the Lions came in 13th among 32 NFL franchises.

Based on this attendance metric, the L.A. Chargers (110.35), the L.A. Rams (104.26) and the San Francisco 49ers (103.91) finished with the top-three highest percentages of fans during the ‘25 campaign. Meanwhile, using this same metric, the Cowboys dipped to 28th (92.99), the Broncos dropped to eighth (100.35) and the Chiefs fell to 21st (96.13).

As for which team drew the lowest percentage of fans in 2025, it was the Tennessee Titans (85.13). Tennessee finished just 3-14 and in last place in the AFC South, and fired its head coach Brian Callahan after a 1-5 start to the season.

Undeniably, the total home attendance figure above for Detroit (516,719) is rather misleading.

Sure, there was a noticeable dip in attendance from the prior season. However, the drop-off isn’t as significant as it looks on the surface.

At the end of the day, Lions fans, despite the team’s decline in on-field production, still did a solid job of packing the stands at Ford Field.

And the organization, in return, has every reason to remain grateful for its loyal and rabid fanbase.

For a better snapshot, here are the teams sorted by their total percentage of possible seats filled. Many of the stadiums have a variable amount of possible seating, so I opted for the lower end of that range which may be why there are a handful of teams over 100%. pic.twitter.com/0q2OND4zVO
— Brendan Stepek (@tallguyStepek) January 28, 2026

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