The Detroit Lions are an American football team based in Detroit, Michigan.

They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference (NFC) in the National Football League, and play their home games at Ford Field in downtown Detroit.

For the 1930 season, the Spartans formally joined the National Football League (NFL) as the other area independents folded because of the Great Depression.

The Detroit Lions began play as the Portsmouth Spartans for the 1929 season, drawing players from defunct independent professional and semi-pro teams in the local Ohio-Kentucky-West Virginia tri-state area.

In that game, Spartan coach Potsy Clark refused to make even a single substitution against the defending NFL champion Packers.

The Spartans-Bears game was played because both teams ended the regular season with the same number of victories (the Spartans finished at 6-1-4 while the Bears were 6-1-6; ties were not reckoned as part of the percentage in the NFL until 1972).

Because of blizzard conditions in Chicago, the game was moved from Wrigley Field indoors to Chicago Stadium, which allowed for only an 80-yard field; some have called the contest the first arena football game.

Despite great success on the field, poor revenues and the Great Depression threatened the Spartans' survival.

In 1934, a group led by Detroit radio executive George Richards (owner of Detroit's powerful WJR) bought the Spartans and moved them to Detroit.

Richards renamed the team the Lions, as a nod to the Detroit Tigers.

He also said that the lion was the monarch of the jungle, and he intended for his Detroit Lions team to be the monarch of the NFL.

NFL Players Mentor Troubled Detroit Lions