As many of us can remember, the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions played games on Thanksgiving Day. But why?
Let's start with Lviv. They played every Thanksgiving since 1934with the exception of the 1939–44 season, despite the fact that they were not a good team for most of those years. The Lions played their first season in Detroit in 1934 (previously they were the Portsmouth Spartans). They had a hard time their first year in Detroit, as most sports fans there loved the Detroit Tigers baseball team and did not turn 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 great 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 Stadium for the first time. Richards continued this tradition for the next two years, and the NFL continued to schedule them on Thanksgiving Day when they resumed games on that day after the end of World War II. Richards sold the team in 1940 and died in 1951, but the tradition he started continues today as the Lions play the Green Bay Packers.
Cowboys first played on Thanksgiving Day in 1966.. They came into the league in 1960 and, as hard as it may be to believe now, they struggled to attract fans because they were pretty bad in the first few years. General manager Tex Schramm actually begged the NFL to schedule their game on Thanksgiving Day in 1966, thinking it might increase their popularity in Dallas as well as around the country 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 becoming “America's Team.” They only missed the Thanksgiving Day game in 1975 and 1977, when NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle chose the St. Louis Cardinals instead.
Games with the Cardinals were ratings losses, so Roselle asked the Cowboys if they would play again in 1978.
“It was a failure in St. Louis,” Schramm told the Chicago Tribune in 1998. “Pete asked if we would take him back. I replied that only if we get it forever. This is something you should create as a tradition. He said, “It’s yours forever.” »
Dallas will face the Kansas City Chiefs on Thursday.
