Thanksgiving is just around the corner in the USA. On the penultimate Thursday of November, as usual, turkey is on the menu and NFL football is on the daily program. There are also three Thanksgiving games this year and of course the Detroit Lions and the Dallas Cowboys are also taking part this year. But why do these two teams actually have a home game on Thanksgiving every year?
Sport.de clarify!
NFL: That’s why the Detroit Lions play on Thanksgiving every year
The Detroit Lions will play their 84th Thanksgiving game on Thursday. So it’s an age-old tradition that football is played in Detroit on one of the country’s biggest holidays.
This was even the case before the Lions even existed. As early as 1917, the then Detroit Heralds played in a Thanksgiving home game, and the Lions’ other predecessor teams, the Panthers and Wolverines, also did the same.
The Detroit Lions themselves have only been around since 1934, but that year the franchise hosted a Thanksgiving Game for the first time. The driver of this was the then owner George A. Richards, who, as a businessman, also owned a radio station, among other things.
This was part of NBC Blue, which is why it was easy for Richards to negotiate an agreement with the broadcasting network NBC.
The game was interrupted by the Second World War, but was resumed after the end of the war, including on Thanksgiving. At this point, the Lions home game continued to be a fixture and a new tradition was born that has endured ever since, even if the Lions were not always the most attractive draw in terms of sport.
That’s why the Dallas Cowboys play on Thanksgiving every year
And of course “America’s Team” can’t be missed at Thanksgiving, right? This is now the case, but this fact is more due to the fact that the Dallas Cowboys were not yet “America’s Team” at the time.
Founded in 1960, the franchise from Texas was initially unable to gather a large group of fans around it. In 1966, Tex Schramm, then general manager of the Cowboys, tried to stimulate the growth of his team.
His idea was to also play on Thanksgiving because the NFL was looking for another home team. However, that was definitely a risk at the time, as the fragmentation of matchday that is now commonplace was anything but typical back then.
At that time, Schramm even allegedly had the NFL guarantee him certain income if the Thanksgiving Game did not attract enough spectators. In addition, if the Cowboys are successful, he is said to have negotiated a right of first move to Thanksgiving games if the game were to be a crowd puller.
And that’s exactly how it happened: More than 80,000 fans came to the game against the Cleveland Browns – a record attendance. Since then, with the exception of 1975 and 1977, the Cowboys have hosted a Thanksgiving game every year.
The Thanksgiving Games live on NITRO
If you don’t want to miss the Thanksgiving Games in Detroit and Dallas in this country, you should attend on Thursday NITRO turn on. The broadcast starts at 6:00 p.m. before the Lions host the Green Bay Packers at 6:30 p.m.
At 10:30 p.m., also on NITRO, there will be a duel between the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Commanders. On Friday, NITRO will be followed by the first Black Friday game in NFL history at 9 p.m.
The three NITRO games at a glance:
11/23 Kickoff 6:30 p.m. on NITRO and in the live ticker on sport.de – Green Bay Packers @ Detroit Lions
11/23 Kickoff 10:30 p.m. on NITRO and in the live ticker on sport.de – Washington Commanders @ Dallas Cowboys
November 24th Kickoff 9 p.m. on NITRO and in the live ticker on sport.de – Miami Dolphins @ New York Jets