Ohhhh Auto

Although it's embarrassing, it's never hard to admit, that I am a Detroit Lions fan. By the numbers the Lions are the worst franchise in the history of sports. As a fan, the Lions are the worst franchise in the history of sports. One playoff win in the past 5o some years. When the highlight of the season doesn't occur when football is being played, that is the NFL draft, that is a bad sign. A portion of my day each week during the season is following the latest Lions news and following what is going on around the NFL. Each week, just like during the draft, I get my hopes up that the Lions could do something positive only for them to either come close and devastatingly fall short, or for them just to be blown out.

After 50 years something has to give right? Wrong. The way the NFL is set up, it is the most fair sport in terms of creating competitiveness between different teams. For example the salary cap prevents teams from gaining an edge over other teams by one owner (cough the Yankees) a ridiculous amount more than other owners. Each year the worst teams receive the best picks in the draft so the bad teams can rebuild their team and become more competitive. So why have the Lions never caught up to the competition?

There has been one constant to the Lions during the past 50 years. Mr. William Clay Ford, the owner. A lot of Lions fans have been calling for William Clay Ford's head for several years. He does a lot of good things though. Just a few years ago he financed a state of the art facility for the fans and the players, he pays his staff top dollars and from my understanding he treats them well. Regardless, he is the reason for the Lions incompetence. This year more than the past failures have been even more unbearable to watch as a fan. The Lions are playing their hearts out this year, each and every play they are playing as hard as they can, but the talent on the field is so far inferior to their opponents they don't have a shot at winning. As a fan, each week all you can do is feel bad for the players because they try so hard but don't have a chance.

So why do they lack all this talent? The answer again is William Clay Ford. I don't fault him for hiring Matt Millen. Millen was hired to get over the hump, the Lions were stuck at 9-7 and 8-8 for four straight years and they needed a new GM that would get them into the playoffs and win them some games. Along came Millen who lost all the momentum and in completely dismantling an above average team in the process and creating the joke of the league in six years, all while securing a 5 year extension to his contract. Finally, Millen was fired this year but his incompetence will plague the Lions for years to come.

WCF has made mistake after mistake managing this team. He is the one that kept Millen too long. It's obvious after 50 years of failure there is only one person to blame the atrocity on.

Now Ford and the other auto companies are asking for a government bailout. It's not what you can do for this country, it's what this country can do for you... wait a second. We're talking about throwing money at companies who have been in a decline for the past 15 years. It's almost understandable bailing out financial companies that are dependent on cash to lend to other companies, but auto companies?

Let's relate this back to WCF. Last year the Lions were the only team in the most profitable sport to actually lose money. Well maybe it was due to the poor ticket sales, oh wait, every single game was still sold out... how is it possible to lose money then? Who knows, ask WCF.


Unfortunately, the auto industry is a dying business. The main problems are due to the business models used by the companies. The basic principles of economics is supply and demand. Due to the lucrative contracts that the auto companies have with the unions, the supply that they have been producing outweighs demand by a long shot, which is causing the record losses. As demand continues to decrease and the auto companies continue to produce at the cars at the rate they do, there is no way that they can become profitable.

So what will a government bailout do for the auto industries? Give them cash flow so they can continue to operating under a flowed business model that will never be successful, just like the Lions.

Luckily I have the choice on how much of the money from my pocket supports the Lions. I have gone to at least two Lions games for the past 5 years. This year I am not going to a single game because although I am a fan of the team, I refuse to financially support a team that is not competitive due to the choices of ownership.

Unfortunately, I don't have a say where my money is spent for tax purposes when the government decides to bailout an industry which refuses to adapt to the economics of the new world.