How to Host a Football Tailgate at Home This Fall

How to Host a Football Tailgate at Home This Fall

 

Updated September 26, 2025

There are plenty of reasons to host your football tailgate at home this season, whether you’re looking to avoid the crowds, stay warm, or save money. 

Whatever your reasons for tailgating at home, you can bring all the fun (and way better food) straight to your backyard. Welcome to the world of homegating!

Benefits of a Football Tailgate Party at Home

Homegating rules, parking lot tailgates drool. Well, okay, to each their own. However, at-home tailgate parties do have their advantages. 

  • Keep your tailgating expenses lower. No surprise ticket fees or overpriced food!
  • Eliminate sitting in traffic or walking miles to the stadium. The longest walk is from your couch to the grill.
  • Minimize tantrums from a long day without a nap (and no, we’re not just talking about the kids).
  • Worry less about the weather and avoid sunburn or frostbite.
  • Better bathrooms. Enough said.
  • Enjoy close-ups, commentary, and replays during the game. No squinting or struggling to hear what’s going on.
  • Comfy couch or chair versus a hard stadium seat? No comparison.
  • Customized menu and extra fridge and freezer space for your must-have tailgating food.
  • Wake up when you want. No need to be up at 3 a.m. to beat the stadium traffic or wait in long merch lines.

A football tailgate at home means you’re the MVP. You control how you enjoy the game with your friends and family, and of course, your food and drink!

Home Tailgate Party Ideas

Get the grill fired up, turn the game on, and get ready to turn your backyard or living room into the ultimate fan zone. Here are a few ideas that’ll make tailgating at home your new favorite thing. 

Keep Décor Simple

The décor of your tailgate doesn’t have to be fancy. Make the event feel like a real football tailgate— only in your backyard or living room. 

Plastic tablecloths and disposable plates, silverware, and napkins (with your team’s colors) make it easy to clean up at the end of the day. If you want to go big, you can even make signs or balloon banners to cheer on your team. Even the smallest details, like team-colored cardboard cut into confetti, can make your tailgate décor pop.

You may also want to purchase an outdoor tent so you can bring the party near the grill and enjoy some fall weather if it’s still nice outside. Don’t forget to put out some comfortable chairs, blankets if it’s cold, and tables where people can put down their drinks and food, play games, and chat.

Home Tailgate Food is the Life of the Party

Food is everyone’s favorite part of the tailgate, right?  We can’t get enough of home tailgate recipes. Grilling is our absolute favorite way to prepare home tailgate foods. There’s nothing quite as delicious and reminiscent of the big game as charcoal smoke filling the air. Even thinking about it is getting us excited for the fall!

Forget flimsy portable setups. At home, you get to unleash the full glory of your ceramic grill. Add our grill baskets, drip pans, and accessories, and you’re running a five-star steakhouse right off your deck.

Here are some of our favorite home tailgate foods. Light the grill with an easy-to-use grill torch, and let’s get cooking!

Appetizers/Snacks

Main Course

 

  • Burgers (this is the easiest home tailgate food because you just have to cook the burgers, set out some buns and toppings, and let people make their own)
  • Pulled pork sandwiches
  • Chicken wings
  • Grilled cheese on the grill
  • Grilled brats with sriracha mayo
  • Hawaiian chicken (put grilled chicken bites on skewers with grilled pineapple for the ultimate crowd pleaser)

Sides

  • Grilled eggplant
  • Corn on the cob
  • Easy salads (like coleslaw or pasta salad)
  • Veggie skewers (great with our award-winning Shake that Herb rub!) 
  • Grilled onions (for the burgers/brats)
  • Fruit & veggie trays
  • Baked beans

(Don’t miss all these awesome grilled side dishes, too!)

Dessert

Serving Tips

  • Make everything as buffet-style or DIY as possible, so you can set it up, throw it on the grill, and let people grab things as they want. 
  • Use toothpicks with tiny paper cut-outs to label menu items. This can help people figure out what they’re eating, and they can be aware of any food allergies or sensitivities as well.
  • Create a theme menu for maximum smack talk and fun. Playing the Bears? Label smoked sausages as “Bear Bait” or try some Chicago-style hot dogs.
  • Have some containers or to-go options handy to send food home with guests. 

Drinks, Drinks, Drinks

For a lot of us tailgaters, the drinks are almost as important as the food! While there’s nothing wrong with soda, beer, and water, it can also be fun to get creative. 

For a tailgate party at home, we recommend setting up a drink cart for mixed beverages and separating coolers for alcoholic or non-alcoholic drinks to keep things simple. For outdoor parties, you can even turn barrels, buckets, and wheelbarrows into makeshift ice buckets/coolers or plug in a mini fridge in the garage. 

To make your drinks really festive, you can use the team name and colors as inspiration for your drink options.

  • Make Team Spirit Sangria colored with fruit that matches your team colors
  • Set up a Bloody Mary Bar if you’re feeling spicy. Grilled bacon garnish, anyone?
  • Craft a colorful mocktail punch for kids and DDs.
  • Football or team-themed cups or can koozies.

Get Spirited

The more spirit, the better the party! Throw on your favorite player’s jersey and get dressed up for the game like you normally would! 

If you’re hosting the tailgate party, you may also want to offer spirited items up for grabs like stickers, tattoos, team flags, foam fingers, and other little football themed accessories. 

One of our favorite home tailgate party ideas is to create a “grab bag” of spirited goods. Whenever someone wins a tailgate game, let them pick a surprise gift as a prize! Or you can offer a prize to the best-dressed guest. 

Game Front and Center

Of course, you want to keep the big game the focus of the day. Big screen TV on the patio? Projector on the garage? Doesn’t matter—as long as everyone can see the game and hear the smack talk.

Make sure every TV in the house is playing the game! Then bring the game outside if you’re playing lawn games or grilling in the yard. 

Thankfully, at home, you can still easily connect to your cable or WiFi outdoors. You’ll just need to create a good outdoor electronics setup. Do a test run before the big day to make sure everything works and you have the right extension cords, power cables, and anything else you might need. 

6. Music in the Air

Fill your tailgate’s air with grill smoke and music. It doesn’t matter what you put on, as long as it’s upbeat and fun. 

Waterproof outdoor speakers are a great option to bump your tunes and connect to your TV to blast the game after kickoff. 

Also, don’t forget to check who’s performing the National Anthem or putting on a show at halftime. Adding some songs from these artists to your playlist can help build the excitement.

7. Start a Little Competition

Nothing says game day like a little friendly competition. Get in the spirit with fun tailgating activities for all ages. 

Some of our favorite home tailgating party games include:

  • Horseshoes
  • Cornhole toss
  • Giant Jenga
  • Lawn bowling
  • Ladder ball
  • Bucket ball
  • Quarterback challenge
  • Beer pong (or water/soda pong)
  • Game day bingo
  • Lawn darts
  • Sports trivia

You can even get some little prizes, like a team hat or jersey, to give out to the winners. A prize or two makes games extra competitive and fun.

Pro Tips for Homegating Glory

Anyone can throw burgers on a grill and call it a tailgate. However, if you want to become the undisputed at-home tailgate champion, here are some tips to lock in your legacy. 

Cook Smarter, Not Harder

Your grill is a beast, but don’t make it harder than it has to be. Use accessories like our grill baskets, cans, dividers, and drip pans. They’re total lifesavers for keeping flare-ups (and cleanup) under control. The goal is to look like a grillmaster without sweating like one or missing out on all the party fun.

Master the Pregame Prep

Do yourself a favor: chop veggies, marinate meats, and prep sauces before kickoff. The last thing you want is to miss a touchdown because you’re stuck slicing onions. Prepped food means you can actually enjoy yourself.

Also, be sure to plan out your cooking schedule. Things like brisket and thick cuts of meat require extra time on the grill. You don’t want to leave your guests hungry because you didn’t start cooking early enough. 

Stock Up on Necessities

While grillers tend to focus on the food, they often forget some of those extras that help the process go way smoother. We recommend stocking up on: 

  • Tongs, spatulas, and serving trays. You can never have too many. Nothing kills your grill-master swagger faster than trying to flip wings with your fingers because someone “borrowed” your only set of tongs to serve salad.
  • Paper towels and napkins. They always seem to go fast during parties and events.
  • Condiments and spices. Nothing worse than getting ready to devour a brat only to realize you’re out of mustard. Stock up on fan favorites and basics like mustard, ketchup, mayo, hot sauce, salt, pepper, and our award-winning barbecue rubs for some extra flavor.
  • Ice. Trust us when we say you can’t have “too much” ice on hand.
  • Charcoal. You want to make sure your grill is fired up and ready to go all day.
  • Trash bags. Don’t leave your home or backyard looking like a disaster zone. 

Keep Your Squad Comfortable

Food and football might be the stars of the show, but a true homegating hero thinks like a host rather than a fan. Nothing kills the outdoor tailgate vibe faster than a swarm of mosquitoes or a sunburn that makes your buddy look like a lobster.

  • Keep bug spray handy and light some citronella candles to keep away those pests.
  • Have a backup plan (or make sure the living room is set up) if Mother Nature forces you inside.
  • Have some sunscreen and a few baseball caps or visors handy for when the sun peeks out.
  • If you’re tailgating at home into the evening, keep some blankets or hoodies on hand for extra warmth.
  • Make sure the bathroom is stocked with extra toilet paper. (Your guests will appreciate it.)

Oh, and it never hurts to have a guest room, air mattress, or extra blankets ready for the guest who had one too many or the little football fans who may benefit from nap time. 

Make Your Home Tailgate Party Kick Ash

Hosting a football tailgate at home doesn’t have to be hard. You can keep it simple or make it extravagant—however the wind blows you! 

Make sure you’ve got the home tailgate food, drinks, spirit, and game-day adventure, and you’re bound to make incredible memories this tailgating season!

Of course, you can’t forget your Kick Ash Basket products. Our baskets, cans, and other goodies (like heat-resistant gloves) make cleaning your grill so simple, easy, and safe that you can keep cooking throughout the tailgate— while having a blast at the same time!

Shake that ash and light that fire— it’s time to get out there and enjoy the game!

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PS: Don't miss these other fall grilling tips, tricks, and recipes!