NEW YORK — Will anybody be watching football or eating turkey on Thanksgiving? Best Buy announced that it will open most of its stores Thanksgiving Day, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The announcement comes as an increasing number of major retailers, including Kohl’s, Macy’s, Sears, Kmart, and Office Max, try to extend Black Friday shopping activity by opening their stores on Thanksgiving Day.

For Best Buy, more than 1,000 of its stores will open at 6 p.m. local time on Thanksgiving. That’s far later than Kmart stores, which will open at 6 a.m. and remain open for 41 hours through Black Friday.

The trend among retailers to open increasingly earlier on Thanksgiving is an effort to keep pace with online retailers while boosting slow sales during the sustained economic recovery.

Last year, there was public backlash from some employees and traditionalists when Walmart, Target, Toys “R” Us and Sears announced that they would be open on Thanksgiving Day. Best Buy, Macy’s and Kohl’s waited until midnight.

"Last year, millions of people made it clear that they wanted to shop on Thanksgiving evening," said Best Buy in a statement, noting that laws in Maine, Massachusetts and Rhode Island will prevent it from opening in those states until Black Friday.