When we attend a sporting event, particularly football, a big part of the game is enjoying food, drinks, and the company of friends, even before the game starts. This ritual has come to be known as tailgating. To this day, people do not know where or how tailgating started, but there are some theories.
Some say that the first tailgating event occurred during the first college football game between Rutgers and Princeton. It is said that fans grilled sausages before the game at the “tail-end” of their horse drawn carriages. Others say that tailgating began in 1904 at a Yale football game. Apparently after a long train ride to the game, the fans on the train were hungry. Luckily they remembered to bring food and drinks so that they could eat right before the game.
The last theory of the beginning of tailgating might be the most believable. In 1919 when the Packers first began their franchise, fans would park their pickup trucks around the field and fold down their tailgates to sit on while they enjoyed some food and drinks and watched the game. Since there is no one story on how tailgating came about it, we might never know where it started, but the impact that tailgating has had on the fan experience can’t even be measured.
Tailgating has been a part of football for years. College football fans, many students, go out hours before the scheduled time of kickoff to socialize, eat, drink, and get fired up for their team. NFL fans also travel to the stadium hours before the game to begin their pregame rituals. It is a great time to spend time with friends and prepare for the game ahead.
One of the important components of any tailgate is an abundance of great tasting food. Fans take pride in their food and love to show it off. There are even contests for the best tailgating food. Depending on what region of the country you’re on, you will find different and unique food. In the south some tailgaters will prepare alligator and other Cajun dishes, while in colder places up north you will find clam chowder, sausage, and chili. Anything from barbeque, to seafood, to clambakes, to Buffalo chicken wings will do the job, but the food is an important part of the identity of the region and the team.
Unfortunately, some see tailgating as an excuse for people to be publicly intoxicated, and it is even sanctioned in some areas. Many colleges allow drinking across campus on game day, but police are still quick to enforce the law and crack down on underage drinking. Many NFL tailgaters partake as well, and police patrol the tailgating grounds and monitor to head off potential DUI incidents after the game.
Since drinking while tailgating has become such a popular tradition, fans take pride in it and companies profit from it as well. When you watch an NFL football game on TV, there is a large preponderance of beer commercials, and the Super Bowl commercial deluge is also dominated by the presence of beer commercials.
Tailgating brings in income for the local economy, too – from restaurants and bars that spring up around the stadium, to homes in the neighborhood of some stadiums that turn their lawns into parking lots on Sunday, there is a tremendous cottage industry around the tailgating events.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fy4TnqYcxk LSU (Drinking problems in tailgating) Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLNck_qnvAs Packers Tailgating Video
