Yes, this is the same 80,000 seat facility that once was home to the NFL’s Detroit Lions. In its time, it was the largest capacity NFL stadium. It also once was home to the NBA’s Detroit Pistons and was the venue of various NCAA football bowl games. It hosted an NBA all-star game, four 1994 World Cup soccer matches and Super Bowl XVI. It staged many concerts from Elvis to Michael Jackson. It set an attendance record for a sporting event when droves of white-trash, red-necked hillbillies invaded its ground for the World Wrestling Federation’s WrestleMania 3 (93,173). Only to be eclipsed by the waves of Bible-thumpers and sinners that came to pray with the late Pope John Paul II (93,682). Now if they could have found a way to combine those two events, imagine the attendance records that would have been broken.
Growing up in Manitoba, Canada in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, I followed the NFL, or at least tried to. The Canadian television networks did not carry any NFL games. I had two choices, watch American national television or American local television.
American national television networks showed a lot of Buffalo Bills’ games. Back then, the Bills were a treat to watch. Jim Kelly cool in the pocket, Thurman Thomas was the premier versatile back, Andre Reed and James Lofton complemented themselves so well as wide outs and Bruce Smith led the Bills defence. Kelly, Thomas, Lofton and Smith are all in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Of course the Bills are more famous for losing four straight Super Bowls (1991-1994) however, that was all Scott Norwood’s fault.
The Lions, on the other hand, were a different story. Although Matt Millen single-handedly destroyed the franchise, to his credit, the Lions were in terrible shape when he arrived. A franchise accustomed to losing and relying on their only world-class player (running back Barry Sanders), they were very boring to watch. Quarterbacks Rodney Pete and Scott Mitchell will never hear their names in the same sentence as Canton, Ohio (except in this instance, congratulations men!). Wide receiver Herman Moore made a decent career for himself despite the lack of supporting talent. On defence the best I can say is that Chris Spielman was a hard-worker who had to make all the tackles, because no else would. One can easily make a case for Sanders being one of the best running backs ever however being a humble man may have hurt his career and his agent should have made a case to get Barry out of Detroit. He recently stated that the main reason for his controversial early retirement (at age 31) is playing for the Detroit Lions had robbed him of his “competitive spirit” through the Lions’ “culture of losing”. Obviously Barry underestimated how powerful the Lions’ culture of losing would become after the 2001 hiring of Matt Millen, the architect of the 24 game (NFL record) loosing streak.
I have to mention my all-time favourite Barry Sanders statistic. How bad were the Lions back when Barry Sanders played? Saunders holds the NFL record for most carries for negative yards (336 carries for -952 Yards). All this by one of the greatest running backs of all time.
Back to the Pontiac Silverdome.
On Sunday afternoons, if the Bills were not playing, I would watch a Lions game. Yes, I would watch the abysmal Lions just to catch a glimpse of the elusive Barry Sanders. I have to say Barry was the most exciting NFL player I’ve ever seen.
The Pontiac Silverdome was completed in 1975 under the guidance of William Clay Ford and the City of Pontiac for a total of $55.7 million dollars ($220 million dollars in 2009). When it was built, the City of Pontiac was a thriving hardworking city in close proximity to other larger cities such as Detroit and Flint. At the heart of Pontiac lies the numerous General Motors manufactoring plants. This is where many of GM’s trucks were built and Pontiac is the home to one of GM’s most recongized brands of automobiles, the Pontiac division.
As we are now aware, the automobile sector was one of the hardest hit sectors during the current recession or depression or whatever it is you or the “experts” want to call it. Car and truck sales are down, especially North American autombiles. For whatever reason (President Obama blames their subborness to embrace change) GM was hit hardest. As a result, the City of Pontiac has taken a nose dive in the past 10 years and specifcally, in the past 5 years.
The majority of homes built in Pontiac have been built in 1969 or earlier (60%) and the number of homes currently being sold as foreclosures is 613. The average home in Pontiac sells for $75,000, well below the national average of $170,000. Times are so tough that my 1997 Pontiac Sunfire, that I sold in 2004 for $2000.00 could have bought a 1300 sq.ft. bungalow in Pontiac at today’s foreclosure prices.
Out of all of this financial pain and sorrow comes a special opportunity. An investment opportunity. An old investment adage is “buy low, sell high” and the city of Pontiac can’t get much lower.
Hence, the selling of it’s crown jewel, the once glorious and infamous Pontiac Silverdome, was necessary to help sustain the city of Pontiac. This is how dire things have become. The city has been hit so hard that they even had to hire an Emergency Financial Manager to help the City cope with the strained financial climate.
The Silverdome has become a massive drain on the finances for the residents of Pontiac. Maintenance on the facility was approximately $1.5 million per year and was not generating any property tax revenue. The costs to maintain the facility far exceeded the revenue to the city and as such, the city of Pontiac have been trying to sell the Silverdome (and the surrounding 127 acres of property) in the hopes to generate some quick funds, save on maintenance costs and help generate some much needed jobs in a city that has 22% of its population living below the poverty line.
After several attempts to sell the facility, the city of Pontiac had no choice but to place it in the hands of the Emergency Financial Manager of Pontiac and have it sold in an absolute auction by sealed bids.
When you take a look at the auction website you get a real sense of the city’s desperation to shed the once proud home of the Lions. The video shows that the winning bid not only gets the Silverdome and the 127.5 acres of property, but they get 3 storage bins, a full size practice field and all the contents of the Silverdome. The auctioneers boast at the 46 concessions, 56 restrooms, 11 concourse heaters, 93 executive suites and if you act now, they will throw in the security offices and security uniforms free of charge.
Yikes.
The Emergency Financial Manager even goes on to state that the city will do whatever it takes to work with the new owner and promises “virtually no bureaucratic red tape”. Wow. Now there is a desperate statement, from a desperate man, with a desperate job title. Couldn’t they have given him a job title such as, financial administrator? Or how about budget manager?
The taxpayers of Pontiac spent $55.7 million building the Pontiac Silverdome nearly 35 years ago and now it has sold for a meagre $583,000 to an unknown purchaser. This was roughly a year after a $17 million bid fell through. Yes, the sale almost went for 30 times the final sale price only 12 months ago. To think that the actual building itself could be demolished and sold for its parts (turf, raw materials, electronic equipment and can’t forget those security uniforms!) at more than $583,000 makes you think that Matt Millen himself brokered this deal.
"This was a giveaway," said David Leitch, an Auburn Hills, Michigan broker.
“The property alone, at $10,000 an acre (around $1.3 million), should have gone for more than that. And you have the Silverdome, its contents, and the infrastructure already in place”. Instead the final sale price fetched a measly $4572/acre, 50% less than the average price for undeveloped land in the same area.
Even the Mayor of Pontiac admitted he was saddened and disappointed by the final sale. Not only did the citizens of Pontiac get severely short-changed, they don’t even know who bought their famous landmark.
The Detroit news media even reported that since it was in fact a Canadian real estate firm that won the auction, the Canadian Football League must surely be expanding to Pontiac Michigan. The media agency even contacted an official for the CFL who informed them of their stupidity and ignorance.
Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight’s game features the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Pontiac Rough Riders!
The truth is the winning bidder bought the Silverdome without even setting foot in Pontiac. The sale seems to be the first step in trying to secure a Major League Soccer franchise for the area however nothing has been confirmed.
The venue I remember as the home of the great Barry Sanders went for pennies on the dollar. A building that would have cost $220 million to build today, sold for 0.3% of that cost. What a typical Detroit Lions move. Why are so many people still surprised that Barry Sanders retired at 31 years old?
Like so many tackles, Barry saw this coming and so the Lions’ culture of losing manifests itself once again in Pontiac.
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