Luxury tailgating levels up game day
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Southern Traditions tailgating offers luxury game day experiences. Photo: Courtesy of Brad Vickers
When Mississippi State professor Brad Vickers missed his own alma mater's game during a Bulldogs loss to Auburn in 2008, he realized more tailgates should have TVs to pass the time during college football Saturdays.
Why it matters: That lightbulb moment became Southern Traditions tailgating, which offers sports fans the luxury of just showing up to celebrate on game days without any of the messy work to set up or clean up.
What he's saying: "We sold our first few packages at Mississippi State and few more at Ole Miss that same year, and from there it kind of exploded," says Vickers, whose company now offers pay-to-play options across the South, including for LSU games in Baton Rouge and at Saints games in New Orleans.
Flashback: Tailgating has come a long way in the hundreds of years since Americans started the tradition.
- It dates to the Civil War, reports Popular Mechanics.
- "If you go all the way back to the Civil War when people knew where skirmishes would be, they'd pack up food and sit on the sidelines and watch," UC Irvine marketing professor Tonya Williams Bradford told the magazine.
- Then, when fans attended the first college football game in 1869, they brought snacks.
- "It has morphed into something that is much more akin to a fan community experience than what it used to be: sustenance to get you through," Bradford said.
The big picture: These days, pregaming has been sincerely upgraded. It's not uncommon for even the most basic setups to have flat-screen TVs, hot food and cold drinks.
Yes, but: It's still work.
- "It really started catching on because people did not want to set their stuff up, for one thing, but more importantly, people don't want to take their stuff down after the game," Vickers says, especially if their team loses.
Zoom in: Southern Traditions is just one of the companies offering luxury tailgating setups; RevelXP started around the same time, and it offers packages at dozens of schools across the country.
- "A lot of trial and error went into it," Vickers says. "We had several storms that blew away our tents and messed up TVs. There was a big learning curve."
- Now, many of the packages Southern Traditions sells in south Louisiana are for trailers, which start around $1,500 and roll into a customer's tailgate spot for near plug-and-play action.
- "They're get to just be on campus all day because they have the access of watching all the other games and comfort of being able to relax and have a good Saturday," Vickers says.