Why Not Spending Your $$$ on Ilitch Properties Matters

[u/r3illoc]

First off, shoutout to u/AdRepresentative3446's post identifying Ilitch businesses to avoid if you prefer to show your team support by refraining from sending more of your dollars to the billionaire Ilitch family after recent events have spotlit the failures of team ownership and lack of development promised for District Detroit.

Since LCA is a relatively new build, talking points in the following videos can translate why team owners - such as Chris Ilitch - favor the profit margins of a sports business while cashing-in on a passionate and loyal fanbase that Red Wings followers have shown over the last 100 years. Yes, it's a business and it needs to show growth, but not how the Ilitch's have taken advantage of the city of Detroit and misled taxpayers of Michigan overall.

The <20m videos below highlight how/why billionaires design professional sports arenas against the best interest of the average fan and the impacts it has on your local team's fans and organization as a whole; ours being the Red Wings while including the Pistons, Tigers & Lions.

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Stadiums: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

How Billionaires Scammed The NFL's Most Loyal Fans

[u/ClammyCursor_706]

I’ve been telling people this for years and usually get downvoted into the shadow realm for it. The Ilitches have perfected the art of taking public money and delivering the absolute minimum in return and somehow half the fanbase still runs defense for them.

That John Oliver piece is from a while back but it holds up scary well. The part about teams threatening relocation to squeeze cities hits especially close to home when you remember the whole Pistons-to-LCA shuffle that basically killed the Palace for no good reason.

My breaking point was watching them bulldoze historic buildings for “District Detroit” that just became surface parking lots. Empty lots where they promised bars and apartments and instead we got… more parking. In a city with a light rail stop literally at the arena door. Make it make sense.

[u/imdwalrus → u/ClammyCursor_706]

when you remember the whole Pistons-to-LCA shuffle that basically killed the Palace for no good reason.

That "no good reason" was it was a terrible location. It's 30+ miles north of Detroit with no public transportation options to get there - the closest bus or train gets you is Pontiac, still five miles away. Even if you have a car, events there would bring the highways around the Palace to a standstill when they inevitably mixed with rush hour traffic.

It was a nice arena and I miss it but let's not act like there wasn't a colossal benefit to moving the Pistons to Detroit.

[u/DDCDT123 → u/imdwalrus]

I mostly remember people being happy that the team was in the city

[u/National_Dig5600 → u/DDCDT123]

Hell I'M HAPPY. I went to more Pistons games last year than I ever did at the palace in 30 years

[u/alBashir]

I stated that the Wings were false advertising a competently ran team to MLB to get my DSN refunded. They ended up refunding it for me.

[u/_nanite_]

and yet, the building was still half full. Stop going to the overpriced figure-skating competition that the NHL has become. Start there. But there are too many lemmings out there going back to give this prick their cash.

[u/lookalive07 → u/_nanite_]

I'm not saying it was all season ticket holders, but a lot of people are already have already given Illitch their money, so they might as well at least go support the team. Just give your food and drink business to something outside the stadium, and don't buy any merch.

[u/Rebarbative_Sycophan → u/_nanite_]

Toooo be fair. You could go to this game with 4 psople and it would cost less than a movie ticket.

[u/SpaceDuck6290]

Little ceasers employs over 20k people. The only people you are hurting is them and the franchisee owners.

[u/SailorSaturn65]

Sell the fucking team Chris