American football on Thanksgiving

For at least the three previous years, the championship had been a matter of dispute as a result of Yale and Princeton playing to scoreless ties on three Thanksgiving Day games in a row.

[4] On November 25, 1897, American students of the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian played a game in Paris, France.

In most cases, games are contested with kickoff times as early as 9 a.m., allowing the participants to have the rest of the holiday off.

In Massachusetts, where high school football is not nearly the draw it is in other parts of the country, the Thanksgiving Day game is a long-standing tradition that brings out thousands of alumni and other fans.

Virtually every school in the Bay State has a traditional rival and the holiday game is a focal point for all of them, no matter how unsuccessful the regular season may have been.

While the games themselves are not generally nationally known, Turkey Bowls hold importance for those who participate and it is not uncommon for rivalries to last for decades.

[53] Turkey Bowls are played by a variety of people including extended families,[54] college fraternities, volunteer fire departments, and local churches across the country which use the day and the game to have fun, exercise and renew old acquaintances.

Today, this is only true for the top-level NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, where it has become a tradition to play a fierce rival on the last week of the regular season.

At levels below the Bowl Subdivision, the NCAA begins its championship tournaments either on Thanksgiving weekend (for the Division I FCS championship) or the week before (in the cases of Divisions II and III; the NAIA, a separate body, also begins its tournament at that time).

After new conference rules that required all games to be played on college campuses, the Thanksgiving Day tradition was temporarily suspended in 1911, but then reinstituted in spurts starting in 1916 and continuing through the 1940s.

Tuskegee University pulled out of the contest after 2012 (they were replaced by Stillman College in the 2013 contest), and Alabama State did the same from 2013 to 2015, deciding to move its homecoming to the Saturday before Thanksgiving; in both cases, the NCAA football tournaments prompted the schools to move the end of their seasons to before Thanksgiving so that they would be able to compete for the national championship should they qualify.

The establishment of the Celebration Bowl for historically black schools allowed the Turkey Day Classic to resume; it was held against conference rivals Mississippi Valley State and Prairie View A&M in 2018 and 2019, respectively.

Other prominent college football rivalries that take place over Thanksgiving weekend include: The frequent changing of conferences stemming from the early-2010s realignment of NCAA teams and conferences complicated the numerous rivalries that traditionally play Thanksgiving weekend.