CUriosity: Why do so many people watch football on Thanksgiving?
In CUriosity, experts across the CU Boulder campus answer questions about humans, our planet and the universe beyond.
This week, Jared Bahir Browsh, assistant teaching professor and director of the Critical Sports Studies Program at CU Boulder, explains the historical and social roots behind the Thanksgiving football tradition.
Georgia Tech and Auburn face off on Thanksgiving Day in 1921. (Credit: Public Domain photo via Wikimedia Commons)
Think of Thanksgivings past, and you might conjure memories of family gathered around the table, the Macy’s parade playing in the background, and the smell of turkey and pumpkin pie.
Jared Bahir Browsh remembers the games.
There was the notorious 2012 “butt fumble” when New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez collided head first with the rear end of his teammate and dropped the ball, allowing the New England Patriots to run it in for the touchdown. And the time in 1999 when Dallas Cowboys cornerback Deion Sanders (a.k.a. Coach Prime now) caught two interceptions to help defeat the Miami Dolphins.
One year, Browsh, who spends the holidays in his hometown of Philadelphia, skipped the turkey altogether when his uncle got the family last-minute tickets to an Eagles game.
“We all kind of looked at each other and said, ‘We don’t care about the dinner. Let’s go,’” recalls Browsh, clad head-to-toe in green-and white Eagles gear as he stands in Folsom Field for an interview. “In our family, Thanksgiving and football are synonymous.”
They’re not alone. According to the NFL, a record 141 million people watched Thanksgiving football on TV in 2024, making it the highest Thanksgiving Day viewership on record.
That doesn’t surprise Browsh, a teaching professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies who studies the social and economic impact of sports. He views Thanksgiving football as not only a rich tradition dating back 150 years but also as a potent cultural touch point that can unite people, even in the most divided times.
“Family dynamics can create tension on Thanksgiving sometimes, but football provides this shared cultural experience that crosses age, gender, religion and political affiliation,” he says. “We don’t have many of those experiences anymore.”
As Browsh notes, Thanksgiving itself was established to promote unity, and football came along around the same time.
President Abraham Lincoln founded the federal holiday in 1863 to promote peace between Northerners and Southerners during the bloody Civil War.
Six years later, on Nov. 6, 1869, Princeton and Rutgers faced off for the first official American football game. Just 11 days later in Philadelphia, the Young America Cricket Club and Germantown Cricket Club played the first Thanksgiving football game on record.
In the years before the 1920 establishment of the NFL, high school, club, and college teams routinely closed out their seasons on Thanksgiving Day, with communities packing into the stands to display their shared pride.
Thanksgiving football first hit the national airwaves in 1934 when listeners huddled around the radio to hear a new NFL franchise, the Detroit Lions, face off against the Chicago Bears.
In 1953, the Lions made history again—hosting the first nationally televised Thanksgiving game.
“People said football would never work on TV, because the lighting was uncertain and it was more of an in-person experience,” says Browsh.
Since 1966, the Dallas Cowboys have hosted a nationally televised Thanksgiving game every year but two, a tradition that Browsh says has helped the team clinch its reputation as “America’s Team.”
The Lions have also hosted a game every Thanksgiving, although some critics called for that privilege to be revoked during the team’s disastrous 0-16 2008 season. The NFL sided with tradition, the game went on, and the Lions lost 47-10.
Today, in addition to the Cowboys and Lions games, other teams vie for a coveted third game in the evening.
Tens of millions look on as they dish up seconds. And in the days to follow, they bask in the victory or lament the loss of their team in grocery store lines, office break rooms and group chats.
“In this oversaturated media environment, we have fewer and fewer shared movies or other forms of media to bring us together,” says Browsh. “But we still have football.”