Analysis | Should the Detroit Lions continue playing on Thanksgiving?
The Detroit Lions lost 14-16 to the Chicago Bears in the NFL’s annual Thanksgiving Day football game. WikiCommons
Every year, the National Football League (NFL) schedules both the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions for Thanksgiving Football.
In a recent poll of The Panther Newspaper, 70% of respondents voted that the Detroit Lions should not play on Thanksgiving Day, but the NFL continues to schedule the Lions on this festive occasion, much to the excitement of the team’s marginal fanbase.
“It’s a tradition, why would you mess with it now?” said Mannie Wright, a sophomore broadcast journalism and documentary major and Lions fan. “It’s something that they’ve been doing for a long time.”
The Detroit Lions were off to an 0-8 start this season, yet they still were slated to matchup against their division rival, the Chicago Bears. Yesterday, Nov. 25, the Lions lost 14-16 to the Bears in the annual game.
The reason why the NFL has kept the Lions in their rotation of Thanksgiving matchups is because the Lions were actually the team who first popularized Thanksgiving football; football teams before had played on Thanksgiving, but it was Lions team owner George A. Richards who was able to market it successfully.
In their first season back in 1934, Richards realized his franchise would be competing for popularity against the Detroit Tigers baseball team. Fortunately for Richards, he also owned a radio station that had a partnership with NBC Blue Network, which allowed him to broadcast the Lions games on 94 stations nationwide. Their first matchup was against the Chicago Bears, which they lost.
From 1978 to the present day, the Lions have had a Thanksgiving game, no matter how well or poorly the team has played.
Historically, the Lions have not seen a lot of success; in 2008 they were the first NFL team to go 0-16 on the season. The franchise has never won a Super Bowl and has the second worst playoff percentage (.350) of all time.
However, some Chapman students are in support of keeping the Lions on Thanksgiving Day for the sake of tradition. Sophomore business administration Erik Svitek said there’s a lot of history behind the Lions playing on Thanksgiving, and playing on the same day as a popular team like the Cowboys can allow the Lions to gain more attention and also make more money.
“The (Detroit Lions) are able to receive a lot of revenue from it, because them and the Cowboys are the only two teams to play (every) Thanksgiving,” Svitek said. “It gives them a lot of needed money … (they) could really use and need for their functioning operations.”
Being from Detroit, Wright explained a big part of the city’s Thanksgiving celebration is America’s Thanksgiving Parade on Woodward Avenue. She said that this parade is a family tradition, and it’s something that shouldn’t go away.
“Sometimes we’ll go to the Thanksgiving parade before the game… and then come back home and watch it on a big screen while the rest of the Thanksgiving meal is cooking, so that’s like a pretty big tradition for us,” Wright said.
One potential solution fans have proposed to make Thanksgiving football more interesting is featuring solely divisional matchups like the 49ers vs. Seahawks or Steelers vs. Ravens. Wright said, for the Lions, playing a division rival is a great way to get more fan interest for their Thanksgiving game.
“I think in terms of rivalry, the Chicago Bears is the team we all have beef with because (they’re) like a 5 hour drive away (from Detroit).” Wright said. “So I think that will be a really good team for them to play.”
Svitek expanded on why there’d be more interest in playing a divisional rival like the Bears, Packers or Vikings; these games in particular are crucial in determining a team’s ability to make a postseason because six out of 17 games in the schedule are played within the division.
“Playing those teams definitely does contribute to the viewership… because (those games) definitely has a lot more significance,” Svitek said. “There’s a lot more importance to the playoff picture in general. There’s always two games every year between all those teams, so either one of those games on Thanksgiving is cool.”
Even if the Lions played a division rival, some fans, like senior business administration major Matt Barnes, feel that there are better matchups that the NFL can take advantage of. Barnes said the NFL should follow what the NBA does with their Christmas games, featuring rivalry games with some kind of backstory behind them.
In turn, Barnes thinks featuring big time rivalries instead of the Lions will create more interest on the holiday. If two big name teams are competing each year, like the Rams and the Chargers, he believes there will be a more consistent fanbase.
“I don’t really consider the Lions having this big rivalry with anyone,” Barnes said. “I feel like (there should be a) rivalry head to head, one like Niners (and) Seahawks, or maybe a cross town rival, (getting) the two LA teams (Rams and Chargers) to play ... I feel like it should just vary by year and kind of have a narrative behind it.”