who played the first nfl thursday night football game
Denver Broncos the visiting Denver Broncos the Kansas City Chiefs Kansas City Chiefs
title: History of Monday Night Football text: the league in 1964 to play on Friday nights was soundly defeated, with critics charging that such telecasts would damage the attendance at high school football games. Undaunted, Rozelle decided to experiment with the concept of playing on Monday night, scheduling the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions for a game on September 28, 1964. While the game was not televised, it drew a sellout crowd of 59,203 spectators to Tiger Stadium, the largest crowd ever to watch a professional football game in Detroit up to that point. Two years later, Rozelle would build on this success as the NFL title: Thursday Night Football text: but NFL Network decided to air the games itself, foregoing a rights fee. The other television deals generated $3.735 billion per year over an eight-year period for CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN and DirecTV (owner of the out-of-market sports package NFL Sunday Ticket). "Thursday Night Football" debuted on November 23, 2006, with the Kansas City Chiefs handing the visiting Denver Broncos a 19–10 Thanksgiving defeat. Each of the game broadcasts were titled either "Thursday Night Football" or "Saturday Night Football", depending on the night on which it aired. This format carried over to the 2007 season. Starting in 2008, NFL Network title: Thursday Night Football text: slate of games featured a number of major divisional rivalries, including New York Giants–Washington, Green Bay–Minnesota, and its opening game on September 11, 2014, featuring the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens. In the wake of the controversy surrounding Ravens player Ray Rice (who had been removed from the team and suspended from the NFL earlier in the week following the discovery of footage showing the player physically assaulting his wife, Janay, who was engaged to Rice at the time the security camera footage was recorded), changes were made to pre-game coverage on the first game in order to accommodate title: NFL on Thanksgiving Day text: NFL on Thanksgiving Day Since its inception in 1920, the National Football League has played games on Thanksgiving Day, patterned upon the historic playing of college football games on and around the Thanksgiving holiday. Since 1978, the NFL's Thanksgiving Day games have traditionally included one game hosted by the Detroit Lions, and one game hosted by the Dallas Cowboys. Since 2006, with the advent of the NFL's then-new "Thursday Night Football" package, a third primetime game has also been played on Thanksgiving. Unlike the traditional afternoon games, this game has no fixed host and has featured different teams annually. The title: Thursday Night Football text: of the games on NFL Network. The first game produced by NBC Sports was broadcast exclusively on NFL Network on November 3, 2016, while the first game simulcast nationally on NBC aired on November 17. A cappella group Pentatonix recorded a reworked version of their song "Sing" ("Weekend Go") to serve as the opening theme song for NBC's "Thursday Night Football" telecasts; NBC also commissioned new instrumental theme music by Jimmy Greco, "Can't Hold Us Down", which was performed by members of the orchestra from the Broadway musical "Hamilton". Both were retained for NBC's games in 2017. On April 4,