Blame Christopher Ilitch, Scott Harris for Detroit Tigers’ collapse
On “Days of Roar,” Evan Petzold and Chris Brown evaluate who to blame for the Detroit Tigers’ collapse, highlighting Chris Ilitch and Scott Harris.
The Detroit Tigers are back in the playoffs for just the second time under their current owner.
Christopher Ilitch, the current majority owner of the Tigers, comes from a famous Detroit family that has played a huge role in the city’s sports scene over the last four decades. But though the Ilitch family has owned the Tigers since 1992, Chris has only been the team’s controlling owner since 2017.
That’s because from 1992 until his death in 2017, Mike Ilitch, Chris’s father, was the team’s principal owner. As the founder of Little Caesars Pizza (and a Tigers minor leaguer in the 1950s), Mike purchased the Tigers in 1992 and oversaw a rebuild that resulted in five playoff appearances and two pennants (2006 and 2012) during his time as owner.
Here are three things to know about Chris Ilitch and the rest of Tigers ownership.
Chris Ilitch took over as Tigers’ owner in 2017
Chris’s father Mike was arguably most famous in Detroit as the owner of the Detroit Red Wings, who he purchased in 1982. The team won four Stanley Cups with the older Ilitch as owner, as he became the most decorated owner in Detroit pro sports.
When Mike died in 2017, his youngest son Chris, already the CEO of Ilitch Holdings, became the principal owner of the Red Wings and Tigers.
Chris Ilitch owns Little Caesars Pizza
Ilitch Holdings owns many notable properties, including the Red Wings, Tigers, Detroit’s Fox Theater and MotorCity Casino Hotel. The company also manages Little Caesars Arena and Comerica Park. But the company’s most famous property is Little Caesars Pizza, which Mike and his wife Marian Ilitch founded in Garden City, Michigan in 1959.
By sales, Little Caesars is the No. 3 pizza chain in the country as of 2023, behind Dominos and Pizza Hut.
Chris Ilitch hasn’t spent as aggresively on the Tigers as his dad
Ahead of the 2017 season, the first year in which Chris took over as the Tigers’ principal owner, the team had the fourth-highest Opening Day payroll in baseball. But the Tigers dropped to 19th in 2018 and haven’t spent above the league average in any of the years since.
That includes the 2025 season, when the Tigers had the 18th-highest payroll in baseball at the start of the year. Because of their positioning among MLB franchises, Chris has gotten the reputation as a conservative spender, especially in comparison to his father.
You can reach Christian at cromo@freepress.com