Throw a World-Class Tailgate

The first tailgate happened before the first whistle ever blew. During the Civil War, soldiers gathered at the tailgates of supply wagons to share meals before and after battles. But the ritual we recognize today was born on November 6, 1869, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, when Rutgers and Princeton played the first intercollegiate football game. Spectators traveled by horse-drawn wagon, and many arrived early enough to lay out a spread on the wagon's lowered tailgate — a meal shared before the match, a community built before the rivalry.

By the early 1900s, the automobile transformed the ritual. Model T Fords and their successors had flatbeds and drop-down tailgates that were practically designed for picnicking. Yale's Bowl, opened in 1914, became one of the first stadiums where parking-lot feasting was not just tolerated but expected. Fans brought hibachis, coolers, and folding chairs, turning asphalt into a dining room. The Green Bay Packers, founded in 1919, turned tailgating into a religion — Lambeau Field's parking lot remains one of the most storied tailgating grounds in America, where fans grill bratwurst in sub-zero weather and treat every Sunday like a family reunion.

The modern tailgate is a multi-billion-dollar cultural phenomenon. An estimated 50 million Americans tailgate every year, spending collectively over $20 billion on food, gear, and team-branded everything. The NFL, NCAA, and even NASCAR have embraced it as essential to the fan experience. What began as a pragmatic way to eat before a game has become a competitive art form — with tailgaters arriving at dawn, deploying canopies, smokers, satellite dishes, and full outdoor kitchens, all to be torn down by nightfall. The tailgate is the last great American potluck: a feast built on folding tables and friendship, where the parking lot is the dining room and the stadium is just the afterparty.