MichiganRadio

Thanksgiving And Lions Football, A Tradition That Dates Back To 1934 GRAND RAPIDS, MI (Michigan Radio) - The Lions take the field today at 12:30 p.m. to continue one of the longest-running holiday traditions in Detroit: the Thanksgiving football game.

The Lions have been playing on Thanksgiving as long as they've been a football team. In 1934, Detroit radio executive George Richards bought the Portsmouth Ohio Spartans and moved them to Detroit.

The Tigers and the Red Wings were already established in town, and Richards was looking for a way to get people to follow the Lions.

Thanksgiving was a day he knew he could get everyone's attention.

Mark Harvey is an archivist for the state of Michigan. He says Richards was one of only a few NFL owners willing to schedule a game on a holiday.

"And so he took a chance on it, thinking maybe he could draw some attention to this new team," Harvey says. "And it turns out it worked."

Harvey says the Lions drew a sell-out crowd to that first Thanksgiving game in 1934, and they attracted a national radio audience.

Except for breaks during World War II, the Lions have played on Thanksgiving ever since.

Contact Dustin Dwyer at dtdwyer@umich.edu.

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