The Detroit Lions have announced that this fall the team will sponsor an LGBT pride event at Ford Field.
The Detroit Regional LGBT Chamber of Commerce has already held gay pride events with the city’s other sports franchises and now the Lions are jumping on the gay pride bandwagon.
The event will be held on October 25 as the Lions face the Minnesota Vikings, LGBT Chamber of Commerce CEO James Felton Keith says.
“It means a lot, in particular the support and rapid response from [the Lions],” Keith told the media. “It means the world, actually. I think, as the Chamber of Commerce we’re usually the boring LGBT group. We’re the suits in the back of the room just trying to make sure that things are moving along. But these large sporting events play into our InDetroit campaign (and) our Inclusive Detroit campaign, which primarily affects the large corporations in the area.”
Keith notes that “sports franchises are some of the largest corporations in the area,” so they naturally “affect the overall social sentiment.”
The gay chamber of commerce group recently held a similar event with the Detroit Red Wings that brought about 1,400 fans specifically for a game. Felton says he expects a similar outcome in October at Ford Field.
“We do anticipate a good 1,400- to 1,500-member (turnout) to piggyback on the 1,400 people that we had at the Tigers pride night,” Keith said. “We expect a lot of those that can’t get in the stadium, that they’ll at least be available for the tailgate.”
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com