Schedule Makers: Lions on Thanksgiving among Most-Watched NFL Games

NFL schedule makers explain that the Detroit Lions playing on Thanksgiving is heavily watched every season.

When a new NFL schedule is released, among the first thing fans look to is how many primetime games their favorite teams appear on. 

Detroit Lions fans were a little surprised that outside of the annual Thanksgiving Day Classic, the team does not appear in any national, primetime games. 

Even more frustrating, the team is the only squad in the entire league that does not have one single primetime game on its 2022 schedule. 

Michael North, the NFL's vice president of broadcast planning and scheduling, explained on a conference call Friday that fans should not discount how many viewers tune in to watch football on Thanksgiving.  

"The real thing for us, again, is we look at them as national windows," North said. "We can never lose sight of the fact that that Thanksgiving afternoon window, that 12:30 window in Detroit, most years, is the No. 2 or No. 3 most-watched NFL game every year.

North continued, "There’s no hesitation to put the Lions in a national window like that. They were nothing if not frisky last year. They gave a lot of good teams a lot of good games. Having them on Thanksgiving, you can certainly make a pretty compelling argument they’re going to get a lot more eyeballs on that one than they would if they had one, standalone Monday night game or one, standalone Thursday game."

Unfortunately, with nearly 30 million people watching, scheduling the Lions this year against the Buffalo Bills, a team in contention to win the Lombardi Trophy, might not be looked at so favorably by supporters wanting the team to be viewed fairly by a nationally televised audience. 

Onnie Bose, the NFL's vice president of broadcasting, expressed, “How do we put that schedule out and make sure to balance all the needs of the teams and the competitive aspects, first and foremost, football, on the field?

"Then, the considerations of media partners, new media partners, the reality of 272 games now and each of them representing an asset, maximizing that, and bringing our best games in the best windows to our fans. That’s the bottom line."