SAD NEWS: Sheila Ford Hamp, the owner of the Detroit Lions, died suddenly today from cancer.
Detroit Lions ownership has often been a hot topic over the decades and for good reason.
The franchise has been under ownership from the famous Ford family since 1963, with three different controlling owners since.
The franchise won four NFL championships in the three decades prior to the Fords purchasing the club, but has been among the worst in all of U.S. professional sports since.
They have yet to reach a Super Bowl, one of four NFL teams never to do so and the lone continuous franchise, and have just three playoff wins since 1957.
But times are changing for the better. The Lions did just snap an NFL-leading 32-year playoff winless drought and have reached their second-ever NFC championship game.
William Clay Ford, born to Eleanor Clay Ford and Edsel Ford, and the grandson of auto pioneer Henry Ford, was a Ford Motor Co. executive. Bill Ford bought into the 144-member syndicate that owned the team in 1956, and partied with the team after the 1957 NFL championship. But he did not get officially involved with the Lions until 1961, when he became team president.
He purchased the club for $6 million, according to the Free Press, on one of the most infamous days in United States history: Nov. 22, 1963, the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
Roughly 94% of the more than 23,000 shares were voted in favor of the 38-year-old Ford, the Free Press wrote the following day, and his offer was the most ever for a sports franchise at the time.