Tailgating Is a Favorite Human Pastime
Before there were coolers and cornhole, people would gather to nosh and watch beheadings.
If you want to get technical about it, tailgating didn’t start with cars, or football, or even America. Ancient Greek and Roman harvest festivals — some honoring Vesta, the Roman goddess of the hearth — marked the fall harvest with music, community, and one last big feast before winter set in. Swap the toga for a foam finger and it’s not that different from a parking lot in October. A 2015 Journal of Consumer Research study on the phenomenon went so far as to give it an actual academic name: “Vestaval.”
There’s an even less flattering precedent, if you want it: some historians trace the same crowd-and-concessions energy back to public executions in 16th- and 17th-century England, where vendors worked the crowd and onlookers packed in for the show. Tailgating has always been a little bit morbid. We’ve just swapped the guillotine for a scoreboard.
On July 21, 1861, a few hundred well-dressed Washingtonians packed picnic baskets — minced meat, apple pies, plum pudding, the works — loaded up their carriages, and rode out to Manassas, Virginia to watch the First Battle of Bull Run like it was a matinee. Vendors on the scene sold food to the gathered crowds — arguably the first tailgate concession stand. They set up on a hillside, unpacked lunch, and cheered for their side. It went about as well as you’d expect for a Civil War battle turned spectator sport, but the instinct — drive somewhere, eat outside, watch men compete — never really left.
Picnic at Battle of Bull Run 1861
Eight years later it found a better outlet: the first college football game, Rutgers vs. Princeton in 1869, reportedly had fans eating out of a wagon on the sideline. By 1906, when the Harvard-Yale game pulled 32,000 fans to New Haven, cars were parked “black… in such a hopeless mass” that people worried they’d never find their own again — and more than a few of those drivers were eating lunch out of the back of them.
The word itself didn’t show up until the automobile did the rest of the work: by the 1920s, stadiums had outgrown their parking lots, fans started arriving by car, and the ritual of dropping the rear gate of your vehicle to eat off of it got a name. Yale’s sports publicist Charley Loftus sometimes gets credit for coining it, though nobody’s fully sure — either way, “tailgating” is one of the only sports traditions named after a car part. Pro football got its own start around the same time — fans were reportedly tailgating in the parking lot at the Minnesota Vikings’ Metropolitan Stadium by the late 1960s.
A hundred-plus years later, the wagon’s gone but the instinct’s exactly the same. Here’s what’s actually worth bringing this season.
Drinkware that isn’t a red Solo cup
Pick your team, pour your beer.NCAA pint glasses ($23.99) — Indiana shown here, but Muse carries dozens of schools on the same listing, so check the variant picker on the guide page for yours.
The trick everyone will ask about.Dragon Glassware's upside-down beer glasses ($19.99) look broken until you flip them over mid-pour. They’re not broken. They’re just better at parties than you are.
An actual hockey puck, suspended in glass.BenShot's hockey puck pint glass ($24.99) has a real puck embedded in the base — heavy, absurd, correct.
For the tailgate that starts with a pit stop. The F1 Racecar Whiskey Decanter Set ($99.95) is shaped like a race car because somebody decided pregame whiskey needed more horsepower.
Plastic cups are for amateurs.Steel chill cups ($16.99 for a set of 12) keep drinks cold and don’t crush the first time someone leans on the cooler.
Grilling gear for people who take the grill seriously
One tool, five jobs, zero excuses. The FlipFork Boss ($29.99) is a spatula, knife, fork, turner, and bottle opener in one piece of stainless steel, for the person who’s tired of losing tools in the grass.
Grilling gear that looks like a golf bag.POLIGO's golf-club-style BBQ set ($31.34) puts seven tools in a mini golf bag, which is either extremely charming or extremely unnecessary. We land on charming.
The lazy Susan of the grill. The rolling grill basket ($23.99) spins your kebabs and veggies so everything cooks evenly without you babysitting it
Twenty rubs, zero decision fatigue.Thoughtfully's BBQ rub variety pack ($29.99) hands you 20 seasoning blends so you stop reaching for the same one every week.
A cheese board shaped like the game itself. The football-shaped charcuterie board ($29.97) is solid acacia wood, and yes, it’s shaped like a football, and yes, it’s still tasteful somehow.
The tackle box that holds snacks, not sinkers. The chilled snackle box ($35.98) has a built-in ice pack and compartments, so your snack spread doesn’t turn into a science experiment by kickoff.
Setup, sound, and seating
The speaker built to survive the parking lot.Turtlebox's Ranger ($250) is a portable Bluetooth speaker rated to actually get dropped, rained on, and cranked loud enough to hear over a generator. It’s an investment, but it’s the last tailgate speaker you’ll buy.
Folds smaller than your lawn chair.Himal's portable cornhole set ($31.63) breaks down flat enough to fit in a trunk that’s already full of coolers.
The table that does double duty.GoPong's 8-foot tailgate table ($99.99) is beer pong regulation size but works just as well as an actual folding table when nobody’s playing.
A table with a team on it. The Florida Gators round tailgating table ($37.60) is a real folding table that happens to be branded — other schools available on the same listing.
Gear that picks a side
Cutlery that picks a side. The NFL Saints steak knife set ($24.99) is exactly what it sounds like — team-branded steak knives, for the tailgate that takes its cooking seriously and its allegiance more seriously.
The spatula with team spirit.YouTheFan's Saints grilling spatula ($24.99) and its Florida State counterpart ($17.99) both flip burgers under the right flag.
Team spirit, cutting board edition. The Florida Gators logo cutting board ($17.64) rounds out the case that literally everything can be team-branded, and somehow that’s fine.
A century and a half ago, tailgating meant packing a picnic basket and hoping for the best view of a Civil War battle. These days the bar is a little higher — but the instinct to eat well, drink cold, and watch something you care about hasn’t moved an inch.
See the full lineup (plus everything that didn’t make the cut here):
Sources:
Tailgating: How the Pre-Game Tradition Can Be Traced to Ancient Times -- History.com
The Fascinating Origins of the Word Tailgate -- Home Dining Kitchen
From Public Executions to Game-Day Chili: Retracing the History of Tailgating — Mental Floss
War, Beheadings, and Booze: A Brief History of Tailgating -- Vice Sports
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