List of NFL on Thanksgiving Day broadcasters

The following is a list of the television networks and announcers to broadcast the NFL's annual series of Thanksgiving Day games. Since the NFL merged with the AFL in 1970, the games had been held only in Detroit and Dallas. Because of TV network commitments, to make sure that both the AFC-carrying network and the NFC-carrying network got at least one game each, one of these games was between NFC opponents, and one featured AFC-NFC opponents. Thus, the AFC could showcase only one team on Thanksgiving, and the AFC team was always the visiting team. This was in spite of the fact that the AFL had fielded annual Thanksgiving games since its inception in 1960, six years before the NFL's Cowboys first played on the holiday, but with no permanent host in any of those years.

The Two afternoon games are held at Detroit (12:30 p.m. EST) and Dallas (4:15 p.m. EST), respectively. Detroit always hosts the first game because a 12:30 p.m. EST kick-off at Dallas would be 11:30 a.m. local time (CST), and the NFL avoids starting games before noon locally. The two games rotate annually as intra-conference (NFC vs. NFC) and inter-conference (AFC vs. NFC) games. This is largely due to the format of the television contract with CBS and Fox. CBS usually broadcasts Sunday afternoon games involving the AFC team as the road team, and Fox usually broadcasts Sunday afternoon games involving the NFC team as the road team. Since both Detroit and Dallas are NFC teams, in order for CBS to Televise one of the games, one game must be against an AFC opponent. Inter-conference games of which the AFC team is away, are televised on CBS. For fairness between both networks and markets, the two games rotate annually between the two networks.

The "early" game kicks off at a special time of 12:30 p.m. EST as opposed to the typical afternoon start time of 1 p.m. This provides an additional 30 minutes to PReVENT overlapping of the "late" game, and also gives both networks time for a pregame show and some additional time for a halftime concert. In addition, the "early" game's network pre-game show is 30 minutes (12:00-12:30 p.m.) and the "late" game's pre-game show is 45 minutes (3:30-4:15 p.m.)

On December 14, 2011, the NFL, along with CBS, Fox and NBC, announced the league's rights deal with all three networks was extended to the end of the 2022 season. The new rights deal also includes NBC receiving the prime time game of the Thanksgiving tripleheader previously carried by NFL Network's Thursday Night Football.

Detroit Lions hosted games

2010s

2000s

Notes

• Following the 2008 season, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell confirmed that the Lions would be permitted to keep their Thanksgiving game for at least the 2009 season, though league owners may revisit the situation "later in the year" (possibly referring to the owner's meeting, which takes place before the schedule is set) if they so choose. Lions president Tom Lewand claims that their game is not in jeopardy, the controversy is media-generated and that the owners have never seriously talked AbOUT removing them; however, this contradicts Goodell who stated that "it's come up a few times." On March 23, 2009, the league owners officially kept the Lions on the Thanksgiving game with an announcement that the Lions would host the Green Bay Packers, one of their division rivals, on November 26. If a change were to be made, under current television contracts with CBS and Fox (which expire after the 2013 season), the early game (with a 12:30 start time) would have to be hosted by a team in the Eastern Time Zone and in the United States (if it were to be moved back a half-hour, the Central Time Zone would also be eligible to host, but because of numerous issues including extended halftime shows, this is unlikely; the annual game in Toronto is also out of the running because the date of American Thanksgiving is not a holiday in Canada), and their opponent be of the opposite conference of the one playing the Cowboys (as it is today). Furthermore, such a move would leave the Dallas Cowboys as the only team to always play on Thanksgiving, and with the Cowboys being the league's biggest television draw, there have been far fewer calls to remove them. SI.com columnist Peter King speculated that when the current schedule rotation ended after 2009, both the Cowboys' and Lions' home Thanksgiving games would be reassessed by the league and possibly revoked.

1990s

1980s

1970s

1960s

Notes

• 1966 - The Thanksgiving Day "day/twilight" doubleheader were both broadcast on CBS in color. For the San Francisco-Detroit contest, Van Patrick and Frank Gifford called the first half and while Bob Fouts and Gifford worked the second half. Meanwhile for the Cleveland-Dallas contest, Jack Buck and Pat Summerall called for the first half, while Frank Glieber and Summerall announced the second half.

• The 1965 Thanksgiving Day game between Baltimore and Detroit was the first regular season NFL game to televised in color.

• The 1960 Thanksgiving Day game had CBS' Green Bay Packers crew (at the time, CBS assigned each of their NFL announcing crews to cover one team for the entire season rather than on a merit system) call the game nationally. Meanwhile, the Detroit Lions crew only contributed the audio for the CBS Lions Network.

1950s

Notes

• Three separate audio feeds/crews were used for CBS' coverage the 1959 Thanksgiving Day game. Joe Boland and Paul Christman, CBS' Chicago Cardinals crew during the regular season worked the national, coast-to-coast feed. Meanwhile, Ray Scott and Tony Canadeo only provided audio on the CBS Packers Network (meaning only viewers in the Green Bay market would receive the Scott-Canadeo audio feed). Finally, Van Patrick and Bob Reynolds only provided audio for the CBS Lions Network. The game was subject to blackout.

Dallas Cowboys hosted games

2010s

2000s

1990s

1980s

Notes

• The 1989 game (otherwise known as "The Bounty Bowl") marked the first time a most valuable player was picked for a Thanksgiving game. John Madden handed out the first "Turkey Leg Award" to Reggie White. Such an award became an annual Thanksgiving tradition among CBS and Fox (and later, the NFL Network).

1970s

1960s

Thursday night games

Since 2006, three contests have been played on Thanksgiving. In addition to the traditional Detroit and Dallas home afternoon games, a third game is now played in prime time and televised by NFL Network. The addition of the NFL Network game on Thanksgiving has AFC fans hoping that their conference will now have equal exposure, perhaps with an NFC-NFC, AFC-NFC, and an AFC-AFC game each Thanksgiving; in fact, the Kansas City Chiefs (after the Thanksgiving 2006 game) attempted to regain "regular" status with the night game (it was Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt who actively pushed for the night game to be established, and the league appeased him with the request).

Starting in 2012 with the beginning of the NFL's new network agreement, NBC would begin to air this game in place of NFL Network.

2010s

2000s

Former hosts

St. Louis Cardinals hosted games

The Dallas Cowboys were replaced by the St. Louis (now Arizona) Cardinals as a host team in and ; Dallas and St. Louis faced each other in Dallas in 1976. Because of the long-established Kirkwood–Webster Groves high school football game that takes place on Thanksgiving in St. Louis, the Cardinals' hosting of the Thanksgiving game was not popular. Dallas returned to hosting the game in 1978 and has hosted ever since.

American Football League games

From 1960 through 1966, one AFL game was played every Thanksgiving. In 1967, 1968 and 1969, in the buffer period before the AFL-NFL merger, each Turkey Day had two AFL games. The team with the best record in AFL Thanksgiving Day games was the New York Titans, who played in the first three, and were 3-0. The Oakland Raiders were second best, with a 3-1 record.

Radio coverage

The NFL on Westwood One Sports holds national radio broadcast rights to all three games. The network's usual Thursday night announcers handle the evening game, with a mix of other Westwood One announcers handling the Cowboys game. The Detroit game, however, uses other announcers not normally employed by Westwood One; Detroit-area broadcasters were used until 2008, but in 2009, Sports USA Radio Network took over the announcing duties for the Lions game.

See also

• NFL on Thanksgiving Day
• American football on Thanksgiving

External links

• Overnight ratings for Thanksgiving Day games since '01