On Thanksgiving Day, all the focus is on the three “f’s”: food, family and football. In Detroit, the football part has even more meaning.
Every year, people from all over Michigan get together with their loved ones to see their home team take part in the NFL’s Thanksgiving Classic. Over the years, the Detroit Lions have left us with exciting victories and heartbreaking losses, each one leaving great memories to share with those closest to us.
As a Detroit fan, I feel very thankful that such a strong and loyal fan base has been rewarded all these years by being a part of this annual tradition. For the 72nd time, Detroit will host a game on Thanksgiving Day in one of the greatest traditions in all of sports.
Although records of football games being played on Thanksgiving Day date all the way back to 1887, the first NFL matchup came on November 25, 1920, the same year the league was founded.
In 1934, the Portsmouth Spartans were purchased by George Richards and moved to Detroit. The team was renamed the Detroit Lions. As a gimmick to boost attendance for the new team, the Lions' organization scheduled a game on Thanksgiving Day. Richards arranged for the Detroit Lions to play the Chicago Bears in the University of Detroit Stadium and for the game to be nationally televised on NBC.
Although the Lions lost this game, 19-16, the Thanksgiving Day experiment was a huge success for the new franchise. Detroit continued to host this annual game against the Chicago Bears until the outbreak of World War II in 1939. The Lions went 3-2 against the Bears during this time.
The Detroit Lions resumed the Thanksgiving Day game in 1945, with a game held against the Cleveland Rams. Since that game, the Detroit Lions have hosted the NFL’s Thanksgiving Classic every year. Detroit was the only team to do so until the Dallas Cowboys began hosting their game in 1966. The format was then changed again in 2006, when the NFL scheduled a third Thanksgiving game that would rotate between different teams to highlight key matchups of that week.
In the 71 games that the Detroit Lions have hosted on Thanksgiving Day, they currently have a record of 33 wins, 36 losses and two ties. This year's Thanksgiving opponent, the Green Bay Packers, has played on Thanksgiving Day 33 times, with 13 wins, 18 losses and two ties. The Lions and Packers have played each other 19 times on Thanksgiving, with Detroit leading the series 11-7 with one tie.
In recent history, the Detroit Lions' Thanksgiving game has often become background noise during meal time. The lack of success in past years has made for a very unexciting matchup in most cases, and led to outcry from NFL fans to revoke Detroit’s rights to the Thanksgiving Day game.
This year, however, not many people are complaining. The Detroit Lions vs Green Bay Packers matchup has been one of the games most looked forward to in the 2011 season.
Green Bay, who has completely dominated opponents all year, looks to improve to 11-0, on their way to a potentially perfect season and repeat Super Bowl.
To do this, they will have to get through a Detroit team that has surpassed everybody’s expectations and has proven to be an explosive team with legitimate playoff possibilities.
This year, all Thanksgiving meal plans are going to have to wait till after the clock hits 0:00 in Ford Field. For the people of Detroit, they finally have a team they can be excited about watching.
As a lifelong Lions fan, I am so thankful for all the great memories that I have shared with my family in front of the TV, cheering on our team. Hopefully this year will provide another great moment for all football fans across the country.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
DETROIT – Why are we forced to watch the Detroit Lions every Thanksgiving? It all started when the Lions were actually the Portsmouth Spartans back in 1929. In 1934, owner George Richards bought the team and moved it to Detroit. The Lions, at that time, were looking for new ways to draw fans. As a marketing idea, Richards convinced NBC to broadcast a Thanksgiving game on 94 stations across the country. It worked. The Lions would end up selling out their first Thanksgiving Day game (26,000 seats), and even though they lost to the Bears, a new tradition was born. The Cowboys had a similar motive for wanting to play on Thanksgiving. The team was looking to boost its popularity and in 1966, they had the chance to play on Thanksgiving. Cowboys general manager Tex Schramm thought it was a great chance to showcase the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders on a national scale. The Cowboys signed up for a Thanksgiving Day game, even though the league was worried fans might not show up in Texas, on a holiday. They were wrong. The Cowboys broke their previous attendance record in their first Thanksgiving game against the Cleveland Browns, which they won 26-14. A new NFL tradition was born. VIEW: Detroit Lions all-time record in Thanksgiving Day game
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Thanksgiving is upon us, and that means it is time for the annual NFL triple-header. The day had long been a double-header involving two familiar teams, but in 2006 the league added a night game that involves different teams each year.
Yep, it’s time once again to open your Thanksgiving sports viewing with the Detroit Lions!
The Lions will host the Chicago Bears in a division rivalry matchup that is lacking some steam. The Lions are 0-9-1 and the Bears are 3-7 with head coach Matt Nagy the subject of numerous firing rumors. Justin Fields is sidelined with a rib injury and all in all, this could be an ugly matchup.
So, why are the Lions always on television on Thanksgiving day? We can thank history for that. Detroit has hosted a Thanksgiving game almost every year since 1934. ESPN noted the team first hosted a holiday game when owner G.A. Richards scheduled a matchup with the Bears the year he moved the team from Portsmouth, Ohio. Aside from a World War 2 stoppage of play from 1939 to 1944, the Lions have played every year on Thanksgiving. They are 37-42-2 on Thanksgiving.
The Cowboys joined them as a regular Thanksgiving host in 1966. Naturally, they did so because they wanted to build national publicity for the franchise. Dallas is 31-21-1 in their Thanksgiving history.
We generally see a rotation of teams, but given the Lions history, it’s no surprise the Bears and Packers are on the short list of teams playing the most games on Thanksgiving. The Bears are 19-15-2 while the Packers are 14-14-2.
Lions president Rod Wood discussed the Thanksgiving tradition recently and he does not see it changing anytime soon.
“I’m pretty confident that we’re going to have the 12:30 kickoff on Thanksgiving for as far in the future as we can ever see,” Wood said at a fan forum for season-ticket holders. “And it’s something that we should be very proud of and I know it’s special to the fans, it’s special to the city and it puts Detroit on the map every (year) to kind of kick off the holiday season.”
“We kind of invented that game,” Wood said. “It kind of put the national media on the map for the NFL. So I think in respect for that history and the games that we’ve played over the years on Thanksgiving, and we’ve had some great Thanksgiving Day games, not withstanding the record of the team recently. That’s how Barry Sanders, I think, became a national icon, because everybody watched him on Thanksgiving. Same thing with Calvin Johnson. … So there’s been some great history on Thanksgiving Day.”
Nov 18, 2018 | Updated: Nov 21, 2021, 2:00 PM EST
Elsa, Getty Images / Elsa, Getty Images
Every year since 1934, the Detroit Lions have taken the field for a Thanksgiving game, no matter how bad their record has been. It all goes back to when the Lions were still a fairly young franchise. The team was founded in 1929 in Portsmouth, Ohio, as the Spartans. Portsmouth, while surely a lovely town, wasn't quite big enough to support a pro team in the young NFL. Detroit radio station owner George A. Richards bought the Spartans and moved the team to Detroit in 1934.
Although Richards's new squad was a solid team, they were playing second fiddle in Detroit to the Hank Greenberg-led Tigers, who had gone 101-53 to win the 1934 American League Pennant. In the early weeks of the 1934 season, the biggest crowd the Lions could draw for a game was a relatively paltry 15,000. Desperate for a marketing trick to get Detroit excited about its fledgling football franchise, Richards hit on the idea of playing a game on Thanksgiving. Since Richards's WJR was one of the bigger radio stations in the country, he had considerable clout with his network and convinced NBC to broadcast a Thanksgiving game on 94 stations nationwide.
The move worked brilliantly. The undefeated Chicago Bears rolled into town as defending NFL champions, and since the Lions had only one loss, the winner of the first Thanksgiving game would take the NFL's Western Division. The Lions not only sold out their 26,000-seat stadium, they also had to turn fans away at the gate. Even though the juggernaut Bears won that game, the tradition took hold, and the Lions have been playing on Thanksgiving ever since.
The Cowboys, too, jumped on the opportunity to play on Thanksgiving as an extra little bump for their popularity. When the chance to take the field on Thanksgiving arose in 1966, it might not have been a huge benefit for the Cowboys. Sure, the Lions had filled their stadium for their Thanksgiving games, but that was no assurance that Texans would warm to holiday football so quickly.
Cowboys general manager Tex Schramm, though, was something of a marketing genius; among his other achievements was the creation of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
Schramm saw the Thanksgiving Day game as a great way to get the team some national publicity even as it struggled under young head coach Tom Landry. Schramm signed the Cowboys up for the game even though the NFL was worried that the fans might just not show up—the league guaranteed the team a certain gate revenue in case nobody bought tickets. But the fans showed up in droves, and the team broke its attendance record as 80,259 crammed into the Cotton Bowl. The Cowboys beat the Cleveland Browns 26-14 that day, and a second Thanksgiving pigskin tradition caught hold. Since 1966, the Cowboys have missed having Thanksgiving games only twice.
In 2006, because six-plus hours of holiday football was not sufficient, the NFL added a third game to the Thanksgiving lineup. This game is not assigned to a specific franchise—this year, the Pittsburgh Steelers will welcome the Baltimore Ravens.
Re-running this 2008 article a few days before the games is our Thanksgiving tradition.