I know I disappeared from the blog for almost a week, but it’s been a very, very busy week here. This weekend it was my boyfriend’s birthday so we went to visit his family all weekend, then went to a Buffalo Bill’s game on Sunday and stayed over. We didn’t get home until Monday and I have been busy with work (Christmas party season). Other than the extra busy work schedule, we are back to a somewhat regular routine until Christmas at least so I’m hoping to be able to write a bit more.
The Bill’s game was a fairly expensive outing, and it makes me wonder how there are many people out there with seasons tickets/that go many times in a season. Take a look at the costs it can entail to be an avid football tailgater :
Game Tickets : $75
This is probably around the average for a ticket. Ours luckily only cost us $25 due to a great discount a friend go through work.
Football Gear : $100
Jerseys are expensive. Most of the people I saw had multiple items like hats, gloves, scarfs, signs, even pants! It was pretty unreal.
Transportation : $50
This could be less if people carpooled or drove themselves to the game, but the easiest option if you wish to drink at the game is to take a coach bus to the game or get a limo (I know a limo sounds silly but it ended up costing us less than taking a bus with strangers on it)
Alcohol / Food for Tailgating : $25
Since you’re typically there for 3 hours before the game, if you plan on drinking you need some alcohol for before-hand and some food for lunch. We brought a mini-bbq and made hotdogs, hamburgers, and sausages and some salads. Not exactly a healthy day but it’s okay to splurge every once in awhile.
Alcohol / Food During the Game : $25
The beer inside the stadium is $9 a pint. So expensive!! If you get two of them over 3 hours and a pretzel when you’re inevitably hungry again, it’d be about $25.
Total Cost : $175, or $275 with the cost of gear if you don’t have any already.
Overall, the game was a lot of money for us to go, but it was worth it for our yearly trip. We really don’t ever spend money on going away for the weekend, so I don’t mind when we do have to do it every once in awhile. I don’t think I’ll ever be a regular tailgater, but I can understand why people like to do it so much. It’s a lot of fun; you can feel the excitement in the air and with a big group of friends it’s great. Everyone is really friendly with each other as well, because they share a common bond in their love for their favourite sports team.
Whenever I think of tailgating, I can’t help but think of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Not sure if you’ve ever seen the show, but I just needed to write that.
haha YES! I thought about bringing it up but figured most people probably wouldn’t get it. That is the funniest episode.
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Football games are so expensive. We’re planning on going to a game before we move away, especially because we could walk to the stadium (it’s about 2 miles, but free!) and just avoid the tailgating for the most part. I can’t imagine paying to go regularly, though!
We’ve been to a couple of soccer games recently, because there are so few cities with MLS teams we figured we’d take advantage of living in one. We also go to a lot of baseball games here, which isn’t quite as fun – the team is horrible so there isn’t as much camaraderie, but the tickets are super, super cheap.
Sounds like it was a great time for you guys!
Ha, I was not expecting this! Tailgating here refers to following a car really closely. T drives right up behind cars on the road, which I absolutely hate, because it reduces the margin of error, and it’s led him to crash once or twice before. Boys…
It means that here too.. there are just two meanings. Which is pretty confusing ! I was actually talking about that on the way to the game hehe. I always yell at my boyfriend about that, it drives me nuts (especially since I’m a nervous passenger).