There’s no question that Detroit is a city that embraces sports. One of just a handful of U.S. cities that claims a baseball, basketball, football, and hockey team, the Motor City currently has the unique joy of being home to an NFL franchise on the rise: On January 28, the Lions fell short to the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship, ending a historic season.
Typically, in the spring, Detroit sports fans have their focus shifted to the Pistons, Red Wings or Tigers. But this weekend, the Motor City will be the epicenter of football as it hosts the NFL Draft for the first time.
The NFL Draft is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of fans to Detroit, and it’s gearing up to be one of the most impactful events the city has hosted in some time. Aside from the draft’s obvious football implications, local businesses could be in for a treat.
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Lafayette Coney Island is a coney island restaurant located in downtown Detroit. A coney island is a restaurant that specializes in hotdogs with beanless chili, white onions and mustard. The coney island was established in 1914, 16 years before Detroit’s professional football franchise began as the Portsmouth (Ohio) Spartans, in 1930. The franchise found a home in Detroit and a new name, the Lions, in 1934.
The manager of Lafayette Coney Island, Avdija Purovic, moved to Detroit from Albania in 1982. Purovic has worked in the neighborhood for 42 years, so he’s seen his fair share of events, including Super Bowl XL in 2006.
The restaurant usually closes at 3 a.m., but events as big as the Super Bowl are anything but commonplace in Detroit. Purovic said that back in 2006, the coney island was open 24 hours for the entire week with lines spilling out the door, and he expects to be even busier for the week of the draft.
To prepare for the forthcoming flock of fans, Purovic said the amount of supplies the coney island ordered compares only to its orders for two Taylor Swift concerts in the summer of 2023. According to The Detroit News, those concerts brought close to 120,000 people to the downtown area.
Purovic said the coney island will have all hands on deck for the week of the draft.
“Double employees, double everything,” Purovic said.
Compared to an average week, Purovic said he expects the coney island to make around $10,000 more per day during draft week. Purovic also mentioned how the rest of Detroit, and its national image, could potentially benefit from the wave of people expected to arrive.
“It’s good for Detroit, it’s good for everybody,” Purovic said. “The people have to see that good things happen in Detroit.”
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Detroit’s draft hosting comes amidst Lions resurgence
The 2023 NFL season put the Lions in a spotlight they hadn’t seen in decades. Detroit beat the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Wild Card to win its first playoff game since the 1991 postseason. When the dust settled after Wild Card weekend, Lions-Rams became the most watched primetime show since Super Bowl LVII in 2023.
The anchor of the Lions offensive line in that 1991 season (and many others) was Lomas Brown. Brown, the most recent inductee into the Lion’s hall of fame, known as the Pride of the Lions, has been a color commentator for Lions radio broadcasts since 2018. Brown said the difference in the city over the past few years is night and day.
“Usually when you go out to eat, every time you would hear something about the Lions, it would be negative,” Brown said. “Now you go out, all you hear is positive things about the Lions. You see so much pride in the people wearing the Lions gear. I think our community reflects what our team sports do.”
The newfound success of the Lions was largely because of assets they received from the Rams in a blockbuster 2021 trade, which brought Jared Goff and three draft picks to Detroit and sent Matthew Stafford to Los Angeles. Stafford and the Rams won a Super Bowl the next season, but Goff and the Detroit draft picks turned out to be vital to its future.
Arguably more important than anything was who the Lions acquired from the Rams’ front office in the same offseason. On January 14, 2021, exactly three years before the Wild Card win, the Lions named Brad Holmes executive vice president and general manager after 18 seasons with the Rams.
Holmes and head coach Dan Campbell have been instrumental in the resurgence of the pride. Detroit had 12 players selected as either starters or alternates in the 2023-2024 Pro Bowl. Half of those players were either drafted or traded for by the Lions since Holmes and Campbell took over.
Holmes said in a press-conference on Thursday that he’s looking forward to Detroit being the center of attention in the realm of football.
“I’m so excited about the draft being in Detroit,” Holmes said. “It’s just another opportunity for our franchise, our city, (and) just for the world to migrate to downtown Detroit. We have multiple major NFL markets that are within driving distance, so I expect it to be pretty packed.”
About the Author
Ronnie Martin II is a senior broadcast journalism major at Wayne State University in Detroit. As a junior he was the Sports Editor of WSU’s student newspaper, The South End, and he has been a freelance reporter for High School Sports Illustrated (SBLive) for nearly two years. Ronnie was also a play-by-play/color commentator for WSU softball for two seasons. Ronnie is an NBCU Academy x NFL Experienceship student journalist who received behind-the-scenes access to NFL gameday operations at the Green Bay Packers vs. the Detroit Lions in Detroit, MI.