For decades, friends and family would gather together, throw some burgers and hotdogs on the grill, pour a cup of beer and enjoy themselves before their beloved football team would take the field.
Tailgating for NFL Sunday is considered one of the most American things a sports fan can do.
In the social media world today, tailgating is becoming more relevant. To some individuals, tailgating is more important than the actual game. The 25th Weber Grill Survey revealed that 50 percent of the grill owners who responded to the survey said they attended a tailgate in the past year but did not go to the game.
In addition to sporting events, another big tailgating venue are concerts. The most popular time of the year for this is the summer.
Though people enjoy tailgating, whether it is at a sports game or a concert, there have been instances of tailgating getting out of hand.
Back to 2012, at a country concert in Camden, N.J., havoc broke lose among tailgaters. After all was said and done, there were 191 arrests and 163 injuries at the XTU country concert, according to Philly Mag.
In the sports world, one of largest fan-bases that is on the rise is the Buffalo Bills, whose fans are also known as the Bills Mafia. The die-hard Bills fans have caused much commotion on social media, as it is uncommon to find a video from a Buffalo Bills tailgate without a table being broken. In one instance, a fan even lit himself on fire.
Though some tailgating instances escalate to destructive and dangerous, plenty of fans everywhere have been peacefully enjoying themselves before opening kickoff.
The Philadelphia Eagles fan base has always been pretty loyal to the tailgating tradition. As a result of the teams successful season, the fans have had a much greater reason to enjoy themselves prior to the game.
Eagles fan and junior marketing major Jordan Krug said, “The atmosphere down at the Linc. on game day is just special. I try to head down to as many games as I can.”
Some fans find it crazy for someone to go down to the stadiums but not actually go to the game; however, for some fans, that is the best part about it.
Junior finance major James Robinson III said, “Even if I don’t have tickets for the game that week, I still go down and enjoy myself with the rest of the bird-gang.”
Although tailgating is a liberating time for some, it is not every person’s cup of tea.
“Yeah, I’m not really a big tailgate kind of guy,” assistant men’s lacrosse coach Paul Mita said. “I like to just get in there early and enjoy the game for what it’s worth.”