On Monday, the Detroit Lions’ President Rod Wood said that cheerleaders would be coming to the team beginning this season. The Lions now join most of the NFL as just the Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers, Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears, New York Giants and Buffalo Bills remain without them. Rod Wood said this about adding cheerleaders: “The Ford family is unwavering in their commitment to improving the Detroit Lions fan experience on and off the field,” Wood said in a statement. “After thorough consideration and receiving input from our fans through season ticket member surveys and focus groups, we believe that this is an opportunity to elevate our game day entertainment.”
Why Add Cheerleaders?
This is a question people like to ask when cheerleaders are involved with a sport. Why are they here? They just dance and cheer and don’t have any impact on the game. Well, it is for entertainment purposes. They want the game-day experience to be as fun and entertaining as possible, and by adding cheerleaders it gives the fans something to look and cheer along with while something big happens or during a commercial break. “There’s a lot of energy around [adding cheerleaders], and so I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t consider what the fans have that much interest in,” Wood said. Rumors had it that Martha Ford was against having cheerleaders on the team when her husband William was still alive, but she was never opposed to it.
The Lions came close to having a cheerleading team in 2010 with the Detroit Pride. The owner of the team, Andrea Wilamowski said “I think that it’s a great thing to have beautiful women dancing and supporting their teams and everything. It’s part of the entertainment dollar that you pay for the ticket. But, the things that we see and the things on this side of it are the young girls and having mentors and being able to see the charitable aspect of things and getting the Lions out into the public.”
Cheerleaders Information
Just in case anyone is interested or knows someone who would want to try out for the team, click here. You will be taken to the cheerleaders page where information about auditions, registration and required documents you need to bring to the auditions. It does say it is not open to the public, but registration is $25 and they don’t give out specifics of who can and can’t try out, so it doesn’t hurt to give them a call and find out.
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