For many Americans, Thanksgiving typically conjures up images of food, family, and football.
Every year, millions of people tune in to watch the NFL games on Thanksgiving; the Dallas Cowboys–Las Vegas Raiders game last year drew an audience of 38.5 million viewers, making it the most viewed NFL regular season game since 1990.
College Football Is Exactly Where The Custom Began.
According to Matthew Andrews, a history professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, football originally originated as an amateur sport that was mostly played at prestigious northeastern institutions like Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Columbia.
When the Intercollegiate Football Association started holding its championship game on Thanksgiving in 1876, the custom was born. However, Andrews claimed that the custom didn’t take off until the organization moved the season-ending game to New York in 1880.
Football became a social event thanks to this game, according to Andrews.
He remarked that “this game was kind of the unofficial beginning of the winter holiday social season.” “People from various colleges and universities would swarm New York City, and there would be pregame dinners on Wednesday nights, as well as post-game balls and theatre outings on Friday and Saturday nights. In the 1880s and 1890s, that is when it takes off.
Thus, Thanksgiving day and college football had become synonymous by the mid-1890s.
Not Everyone Was In Support Of The New Custom.
Until Abraham Lincoln promoted its adoption as a means of promoting unionism during the Civil War in 1863, Thanksgiving was not observed as a national holiday. The rise of Thanksgiving coincides almost exactly with the rise of football, according to Andrews, who claimed that football helped make Thanksgiving a little more mainstream and secular.
Since there were no professional football teams at the time, the game was inextricably linked to high school and collegiate communities, which may lead to ferocious allegiances. Football teams are frequently associated with school colours, and significant occasions like homecoming are frequently connected to a football game.
Communities revolve around football, according to Andrew. “I think it makes obvious that football would easily fit into that culture on this occasion where we’re honouring community.”
However, that does not imply that all welcomed the change.
The New York Herald criticized the popularity of football on Thanksgiving in 1893, saying it was destroying the occasion.
The newspaper stated, “Thanksgiving is no more a serious festival to God for mercies provided. It is a holiday given to the state and country to watch a football game.
NFL Clubs Started Playing On Thanksgiving To Gain More Fans.
Football was still an amateur sport at that time. No one was very interested in professional football when the NFL was established in 1920, according to Andrews.
To integrate the league into American culture, the league decided to start scheduling games on Thanksgiving. A far cry from the three games they plan currently, the NFL would schedule as many as six games on Thanksgiving during the first decade. According to Andrews, everything was done to popularize and engage people in the sport.
Thanksgiving was always a day for football since, by 1920, Thanksgiving was synonymous with football, according to Andrews. If the NFL had not played on Thanksgiving Day, they would have been missing a significant opportunity to increase the popularity of the sport. It would have nearly been un-American.
And the plan was successful. To boost their brand and draw spectators, the Detroit Lions, who play on Thanksgiving every year, started the custom in 1934.
By The 1970s, Thanksgiving And NFL Football Were Inseparable
Even still, the popularity of professional football had not yet truly taken off. The most popular sport in the US was still baseball. However, according to Andrews, that started to change in the 1960s.
The Dallas Cowboys, who also play on Thanksgiving every year, started their custom during that shift. The Cowboys were a new team at the time, trying to establish their fan base and brand. According to Andrews, they started hosting a Thanksgiving game in 1966, providing the squad immediate exposure.
Thanksgiving and professional football became inextricably intertwined by the 1970s when the Cowboys were the most well-known football team in the United States. The Lions and Cowboys still play each year on the holiday, as has become custom
But later, Andrews claimed, other teams began to whine, claiming they were denied “a piece of that Thanksgiving pie.” As a result, the NFL introduced a third Thanksgiving game with rotating teams to the schedule in 2006.
Additionally, fans value these Thanksgiving games highly. The Raiders-Cowboys Thanksgiving game in 2021 was the fourth-most watched telecast of the year, trailing only the Super Bowl and the AFC and NFC Championships.
The top 10 most watched telecasts, except for the inauguration of the president, were all NFL games.
Right or wrong, Andrews declared that football is a religion in this nation. Football is thus revered on Thanksgiving.
