Thanksgiving in Detroit: Where the NFL Tradition Began
Thanksgiving is predictable in the best possible way. We look forward to the food, the familiar faces, and, of course, the football, specifically, Detroit Lions football. The tradition started back in 1934, when a newly relocated team from Portsmouth, Ohio, used a Thanksgiving game to reintroduce itself to a new city and, in the process, created a lasting holiday tradition.
The Lions franchise actually started in Ohio, where they were known as the Portsmouth Spartans when they joined the National Football League in 1930. By 1934, the mid-size town could no longer support an NFL team, and it sold the team for $8,000 to radio executive George A. Richards. Richards moved the team to Detroit, where they were renamed the Lions, both to complement the already popular Detroit Tigers baseball team and to reflect his goal of building a king-of-the-NFL-type team.
A Holiday Gamble in Detroit
Scheduling a game on Thanksgiving was certainly a risk, but Richards knew that this new Detroit team needed attention in a city already heavily dominated by the Tigers. He figured that people weren’t doing much on the holiday, and he used his radio connections as a marketing tool to secure an NBC broadcast across ninety-four stations, offering the team valuable national exposure.
The first Thanksgiving game in Detroit took place on November 29, 1934, against the 11-0 Chicago Bears, and the winner of this matchup would take first place in the NFL Western Division. Richards’ gamble paid off in the end when 26,000 fans showed up, only to be turned away at the gate. The whole day was a massive success, and it became the start of the American Tradition we know today.
Aside from a six-year stretch from 1939 to 1944 during World War II, the Lions have played at home on Thanksgiving Day every year since that day in 1934, with the first nationally televised Thanksgiving Day game taking place in 1953 against the Green Bay Packers.
A Second Thanksgiving Home in Dallas
By the 1960s, television broadcasting helped turn Thanksgiving into one of the NFL's biggest viewing days of the year, and the league was looking to expand. The Dallas Cowboys were a new franchise at the time, and general manager Tex Schramm saw the same opportunity Detroit had nearly three decades earlier: A holiday game that could help to build a fan base in a very competitive market.
The Cowboys volunteered to host a Thanksgiving game in 1966, and the league accepted, giving the holiday a second home. The significant boost in television ratings that followed helped to establish Dallas alongside Detroit as an annual Thanksgiving host.
In 2006, a third Thanksgiving game was added, giving the Holiday a new primetime spot in addition to the Detroit and Dallas games. This game, however, rotates the featured teams year to year rather than using an assigned host. The move proves that Thanksgiving is still an incredibly valuable day for broadcasting opportunities.
The Meaning Behind This Week’s Game
This holiday has a way of producing games that truly stick with Detroit fans. We remember Barry Sanders running through Chicago in a 1997 Thanksgiving showdown during a season that ultimately defined him. We remember Calvin Johnson in 2014 against the Bears, when the crowd reacted before he even pulled the ball in because everyone already knew who the day belonged to. And we remember the 1962 matchup in Green Bay, when Roger Brown and the Lions turned the game into a one-sided affair that Detroit fans still talk about today.
This week, we’re headed into an exciting Thanksgiving Day matchup between the Lions and the Green Bay Packers. After a week 12 game against the New York Giants on Sunday, which was honestly a little too close for comfort, the Lions are going to need a win against the Packers if they want to remain in the race for the playoffs.
At the end of the day, Thanksgiving still comes down to the same three things: family, food, and Detroit football.
The Lions will face the Packers at Ford Field on Thursday at 1:00 pm EST.