January 6, 2023

Tailgategate — the politics of partying before football games.

37 comments:

mccullough said...

Why is Kemp bragging? MLB moved the All Star game from Atlanta in 2021 because they didn’t like the voting law he signed.

So will he now stop doing his job for fear the NCAA will move The Big Game?

And there are more murders in Atlanta than Los Angeles even though LA has 7 times the population.

It’s not safe to tailgate in Atlanta. That place is a shit hole.

rhhardin said...

I remember the politics of Tailhook when the armed forces started to go to hell.

wendybar said...

My brother who is a Patriot fan, went with my Packer fan Husband to Lambeau and tailgated there. (Back a few years, when Brady was still a Patriot) My brother was so impressed that even though he had Patriot gear on, the Cheese heads were really respectful, and invited them to eat or drink with them as they walked through.

Kate said...

I'm okay with football gams, although I prefer rugby legs.

Chris of Rights said...

O/T:

Garner is Webster's Word of the Day:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/garner?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=wotd&utm_content=definitiontext

rehajm said...

I love college football since it means more Saturday tee times for me.

Ann Althouse said...

@Kate

LOL

fixed

Ann Althouse said...

And thanks for the visualization of men in shorts — the good kind.

donald said...

That was completely nonsensical McCullough. Ceptin for the shithole part. But Atlanta is a completely democrat run city, so yeah.

rehajm said...

That was completely nonsensical McCullough. Ceptin for the shithole part. But Atlanta is a completely democrat run city, so yeah.

I was trying to understand the bragging rights of 'We're less murder-ey!!'

rwnutjob said...

I wouldn't worry. there are more guns than potato salad at a Georgia tailgate party.
God, guns & football. Oohrah!

Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) said...

I came up in the '50s, close to Yale Bowl. My paternal GF was a prof at Yale and tickets to all Yale sports were a standard perk. We'd drive a couple of miles to my grandparents' house, an easy walk to the Bowl, just past the school where my parents had met a quarter-century earlier.

The parking lot was nearly all grass, and it was filled with station wagons, tailgates down, and quiet partying -- the original football "tailgating", having borrowed the term from cowboy chuckwagons. As we walked through, dozens of his former students would greet him, and offer all of us food of assorted types, along with Hull's, the New Haven beer. Others would greet my mum with "Have some of your uncle's steamers [clams]. They're GREAT."

It was a wonderful social time, undistracted by the game, and vice versa. Opponents' fans were treated nearly as well, though commonly "joshed" about their affiliation, in that era demonstrated by triangular felt banners on a stick, and maybe a generic school sweater.

Tailgating is important enough here in the KC area that by far the greatest objection to the Royals' plan to move downtown is that tailgating will be (intentionally) impossible, so that all the team-owned surrounding businesses can capture food and drink revenue. When your team sucks, tailgating is still fun. Taking that away may not be the best idea.

The Chiefs have no such worries, and have said that if they leave Arrowhead it will be for eastern Kansas, where they can have a huge parking lot, and free-range tailgating. They know their market. Downtown soy-boys living in "loft" apartments and riding the urban light-rail ... are NOT sports fans.

WK said...

I see on Twitter that Ted Cruz has offered support for the proposed “Gerald R. Ford Right to Tailgate Act - 2023”. So we got that going for us.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

First of all, The Dogs play in Athens, not in Atlanta.

Second, driving people to tailgating get-togethers Saturday mornings is the quickest $200.00 I've ever made.

One of the funniest recollections giving a ride to about 6 girls and they didn't know anything about the particulars of the game, I mean like who was playing against the Dogs or anything like that. They were going because it was THE social event in that area. (Other than college house parties at night).

Temujin said...

Atlanta should be the home of the college football championship. The Mercedes Benz Stadium is beautiful (though not as gorgeous as LA's SOFI Stadium), but Atlanta is the Capital of the South and the SEC is the Capital of College Football (a lot of Capitalizations there). And, it's true. In the South, college football is king. There are great fans and tradition all over the country. But no one lives and dies with it, celebrates it, breathes it, runs their lives around it, like they do in the Southeast. I've lived all over and I'm a Big Ten fan, but after living in the Southeast for years, I know what I've seen.

They'll do it up right in Atlanta for that game.

Earnest Prole said...

Wait, I thought Georgia was ground zero for the depredations of Jim Crow 2.0, otherwise known as “Jim Eagle.”

mikeski said...

Cast aside the politics of partying before football games.

Adopt, instead, The Politics Of Dancing.

Not a great song, but I was prompted by The Perfesser's title. Video is very '80s British New Wave.

mikeski said...

First of all, The Dogs play in Athens, not in Atlanta.

Second of all, it's 'Dawgs.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Second of all, it's 'Dawgs.

D'oh!

Readering said...

Georgia in national championship Monday at Sofi Stadium LA. No tailgating allowed.

Readering said...

But don't believe it was governor's decision!

Anthony said...

I don't get it, where's the controversy?

As a long-time college football addict, I admit that I've started losing interest over the last few years and am not particularly interested in the championship game. I may or may not watch parts of it (but go TCU!). Once the Rose Bowl is over my interest wanes considerably.

Some of the bowl games this year really ticked me off. You'd tune in and find out the best players or the starting QBs weren't even playing either because they used the transfer portal or they're heading for the NFL and won't play. A few years ago I think three Gators sat out and instead of a good game between well-matched opponents, Florida got beaten rather soundly. I wonder if the coming 12-team playoff will make these guys play the whole time, or will they continue to transfer/sit out?

Readering said...

Anthony, I predict the new system will keep people in for the playoffs but make things even worse for the rest of the bowl games.

PM said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Michael K said...

I had season tickets for SC games for 50 years. We always arrived early and had a picnic with friends for an hour before the game. Some fans had motor homes and elaborate setups but a picnic was enough. Then I got old and SC got greedy. They started charging a fee for a "license" to have a season ticket, then more for the ticket itself. That sort of coincided with the U going full on "Woke" and the admissions scandals.

PM said...

And, I dare any TV talking head to say "Texas Christian University" just once.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

WTF is a slam on California doing in that quote? He must not know about Raider Nation or the huuuuge party between the Coliseum and the Museum in L.A. on USC game days. Hell, we even do Friday night lights games like other states do with high school.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Thank you Readering for filling in the fact gap.

TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed said...

Because the SEC is so dominant in the CFP, the championship game should never be hosted in a state with an SEC team. Keeping the game somewhere close in the SEC gives an almost home-field advantage.

Lambeau Field and Arrowhead Stadium are probably the two best choices. Make 'em play January football like it was meant to be.

Mike Petrik said...

mcullough: "And there are more murders in Atlanta than Los Angeles even though LA has 7 times the population."

While the second assertion is true, the first is not. It would be more accurate to say that the murder rate is higher in the City of Atlanta than the City of Los Angeles, but even that is deceptive since the City of Los Angeles includes 20% of the region's population whereas Atlanta only the 8% representing the region's urban core. A fair comparison would have to be of the two metro areas.

Iman said...

The homeless be tailgating’ all over Caliunicornia, truth be told.

24x7x365

traditionalguy said...

The small City limits of Atlanta encircle neighborhoods more like South Chicago. But the metropolitan area and the north side is crime free or has been until recently. That said, Atlanta is the African American Mecca. So college football should be here too.

ft Worth is a small town that has a small private college with a big time Football Program. Historically the wealthy families in Texas send their kids to smaller schools than the monster enrollments of UT in Austin. That became oil wealth families to SMU and Ranch wealth families to TCU. Have no thought that TCU cannot afford the best of everything. They can.

Dawgs vs, Frawgs will be monumental. The TCU team is veterans of a 15 year run by a master of defense coach named Gary Paterson. The new coach only got named 12 months ago. Patterson’s secret was recruiting surplus Texas high school runnings backs and converting them to linebackers in a 3-3-5 defense. That meant he used 5 linebackers with running back speed. They are all still there.

traditionalguy said...

As for playing the CFP in the north country far. Forget it. Just drop football and play the HOCKEY Playoffs like you love.

Political Junkie said...

Fort Worth has a population of about 1 million.

I recall that around 1980 Fort Worth had more per capita millionaires than any other city in America. Guess it was oil money.

Saint Croix said...

The difference in noise between the clock turning over on New Year's Day (3 people in the corner going "weeeeeeeee")

and the Ohio State kicker missing that fucking field goal at 12:07 (WOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!)

mccullough said...

Mike P,

Thanks for the correction. Atlanta has population just under 500,000 with 170 murders in 2022.

Los Angeles has 3.8 million with 375 murders in 2022. (The LA metro area is second most populous in US and Atlanta is tenth most populous).

So the murder rate for Atlanta is 34 murders per 100,000 residents and Los Angeles is just under 10 murders per 100,000 residents.

The Braves were smart to move out to the suburbs. The Falcons and Hawks should build stadiums in the suburbs as well.

College Football might as well hold its championship in Detroit.

Tina Trent said...

It would have been nice if Kemp had provided access to the Capitol when it was in frigging session but so overrun with BLM and ANTIFA thugs rioting inside and outside and throughout the area that I couldn't safely get in to testify at the judiciary committee against a piece of the thugs' legislation.

I don't recommend tailgating there, especially if you get off the train at Five Points, or park anywhere nearby. You might not get out alive. And they just decided to "house" 2,000 of the worst, most inbailable offenders at Grady Hospital a lock from the Capitol instead of keeping them behind bars, where they belong.

So if you do get shot, head for Wellstar Atlanta's emergency room. Oops, sorry, they just closed that one.

The Walking Dead is not a metaphor: it's a travel brochure.