Why the Lions and Cowboys always play on Thanksgiving

Two franchises play on Thanksgiving every year, and neither did anything to deserve it. Both slots were marketing decisions that outlived the people who made them.

Detroit, 1934

George A. Richards had just bought the Portsmouth Spartans and moved them to Detroit, where nobody was turning up. He also owned a radio network of NBC affiliates. So he scheduled a Thanksgiving game and broadcast it nationally on his own stations — instant audience for a team with none.

The Lions have played on Thanksgiving nearly every year since, with a break during the war years.

He owned the team and the airwaves. So he made himself a holiday.

Dallas, 1966

Cowboys general manager Tex Schramm saw the same opportunity three decades later, for a franchise that had not yet become a media institution. The debut worked: Dallas beat Cleveland 26-14 in front of more than 80,000 at the Cotton Bowl.

The point

Almost everything football presents as heritage started as somebody solving a business problem. The huddle was a privacy screen. Thanksgiving is a radio promotion. The traditions are real — they are just younger and more commercial than the ceremony around them suggests.