Mike and Marian Ilitch parlayed their successful pizza franchise into an empire through a series of acquisitions. They purchased the Red Wings in 1982, the same year they acquired Olympia Entertainment. Ten years later they added the Tigers baseball team to their holdings. Ilitch Holdings centralizes the administration, communication, legal, and information technology needs for its various businesses under one corporate umbrella in an effort to increase efficiency and lower costs.

While their entertainment and leisure holdings are vast, keeping the family business growing in the Detroit area through a difficult economy has been a challenge. The Ilitches had been investing in downtown real estate hoping to build a new hockey arena, but those plans have been stuck on hold for several years. Ilitch Holdings still hopes to eventually build a new arena for downtown Detroit to replace the Red Wings' aging Joe Lewis Arena and the Detroit Pistons' Palace of Auburn Hills in the suburbs.