List of Thanksgiving Classic broadcasters The following is a list of the television networks and announcers to broadcast the National Football League ' s annual Thanksgiving Classic series of games . Since 1998 , the game with an NFC team as the visitors airs on Fox , as they have the rights to the NFC ; CBS airs the game where when the St . Louis Cardinals hosted a game instead ) . 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 . 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 . 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 Fox , NBC and CBS , 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 . 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 2014 with the beginning of the NFL ' s new network agreement , NBC will begin to air this game in place of NFL Network . 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 " holds national radio broadcast rights to all three games . The team ' 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 .