Why do the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys always play on Thanksgiving?

For as long as most of us can remember, the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions have played games on Thanksgiving Day. But why?

Let’s start with the Lions. They have played every Thanksgiving since 1934, with the exception of 1939-44, despite not being a good team most of those years. The Lions played their first season in Detroit in 1934 (before that, they were the Portsmouth Spartans). They struggled in their first year in Detroit, as most sports fans loved baseball’s Detroit Tigers and did not come out in droves to watch the Lions. So Lions owner George A. Richards had an idea: Why not play on Thanksgiving?

Richards also owned radio station WJR, which was one of the largest stations in the country at the time. Richards had a lot of influence in the broadcasting world and convinced NBC to broadcast the game nationwide. The NFL champion Chicago Bears came to town and the Lions sold out the 26,000-seat University of Detroit field for the first time. Richards continued the tradition for the next two years, and the NFL continued to schedule them on Thanksgiving when they resumed playing on that date after the end of World War II. Richards sold the team in 1940 and died in 1951, but the tradition he started continues today when the Lions take on the Green Bay Packers.

The Cowboys first played on Thanksgiving in 1966. They entered the league in 1960 and, as hard as it is to believe today, had trouble attracting fans because they were pretty bad those early years. General manager Tex Schramm basically begged the NFL to schedule them for a Thanksgiving game in 1966, thinking it could bring them a popularity boost in Dallas and also nationwide since the game would be televised.

It worked. A Dallas record 80,259 tickets were sold as the Cowboys defeated the Cleveland Browns, 26-14. Some Cowboys fans consider this game to be the beginning of Dallas’ transformation into “America’s Team.” They only missed playing on Thanksgiving in 1975 and 1977, when NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle opted to play the St. Louis Cardinals instead.

The games with the Cardinals were losing ratings, so Rozelle asked the Cowboys if they would play again in 1978.

“It was a dud in St. Louis,” Schramm told the Chicago Tribune in 1998. “Pete asked if we would take it back. I said only if we got it permanently. It’s something you have to build as a tradition. He said, ‘It’s yours forever.’ »

Dallas faces the Kansas City Chiefs on Thursday.