Why Do the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys Always Play on Thanksgiving?

It's a Thanksgiving tradition. But why?

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 way back to when the Lions were new to the world of professional football. A man named George A. Richards owned the team and moved in from Portsmoth to Detriot in 1934.

After moving the team to Detriot, they had a hard time selling tickets and in the beginning of the season, the biggest crowd the Lions could draw for a game was about 15,000. So they came up with a little marketing trick to get Detroit excited about football.

Richards threw out the idea of playing a game on Thanksgiving. He then convinced NBC to broadcast a Thanksgiving game on 94 stations nationwide.

It turned out to be a huge success for the Lions even thou they lost the first game against the Bears. They not only sold out their 26,000-seat stadium, they also had to turn fans away at the gate. and the Lions have been playing on Thanksgiving ever since.

And now on to my Dallas Cowboys. They also took advantage of the opportunity to play on Thanksgiving as an extra little bump in their popularity.

In 1966 the Cowboys wanted to gain some national publicity, so they signed on to be the second game on Thanksgiving even though the NFL was worried that people might not show up. Boy were they wrong, the Cowboys actually broke its attendance record as over 80,000 fans showed up. And just like that a second Thanksgiving started. Since 1966, the Cowboys have missed having Thanksgiving games only twice.

The schedule for Thanksgiving this year is as follows:

Philadelphia Eagles at the Detroit Lions at 12:30pm on FOX

Carolina Panthers at the Dallas Cowboys at 4:30pm on CBS

And the night game is Chicago Bears at the Green Bay Packers at 8:30pm on NBC

Happy Thanksgiving.