Football season is back and I’m so excited to share some easy football party ideas with you today as part of a shop that has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #ShareYourSpirit #CollectiveBias
We are HUGE college football fans, so we welcomed the return to football this weekend with a fun watch party! After going to school in Nebraska (and being in the college marching band), our love of college football probably comes as no big surprise. It’s something I love talking about here on the blog every season as it’s something that’s a big part of our Fall weekends. If we still lived in Nebraska, I think we’d be going to games and tailgating as much as possible. But since that’s not possible, we love having watch parties (homegating) with friends and family here!
While I love going all-out for parties, sometimes you want the fun look without much work. So, I’ve got some easy ideas for your football tailgates and parties – some easier food & decor ideas that you use to make a great football party spread without slaving away for hours and hours.
Easy Football Party Food
Food is obviously crucial for your football tailgate/party! There are SO many different great football recipes out there. But, for this spread I decided to make it pretty easy. Again, I didn’t want to be in the kitchen all day – I wanted to actually enjoy the football game. Since the kids are usually a part of our football parties, I opted for SUPER easy with chicken nuggets – finger food at its finest (or at least its easiest)! 😉 
We almost always like to have a dip for football parties and our chili cheese dip is about as easy as it gets! It comes together in less than 5 minutes and you can just pop it in the microwave or put it in the oven while your chicken nuggets are baking. A basket of chips or two then pairs with that. If you’ve got any fun football-themed serving bowls to put them in, it really adds to the overall look. Then for a healthier option, we love a football veggie tray with some ranch dip.
For a more main dish, one thing I love to do is make a big pot of Slow-cooker Coca-Cola BBQ Pulled Pork. It’s SO easy to make and is great for parties! I love that I just dump everything in the post and let it go. This time though, I did decide to step things up a notch by making some Coca-Cola BBQ Sauce to add to the meat and for dipping nuggets in! 
So yummy! I adapted the BBQ sauce recipe from Coca-Cola – super tasty! Here’s the recipe:
Coca Cola BBQ Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 cup Coca-Cola
- 1 cup ketchup
- 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
- 2 Tablespoons vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients together in a saucepan over medium heat.
- Bring to a boil, let boil for a couple minutes. Then reduce heat and let simmer until the desired thickness is reached.
- Remove from heat and serve. Pour remaining sauce into cleaned jars and store in the refrigerator.
The sauce was SO good drizzled on top of the slow-cooked meat! And the boys loved dipping their nuggets in it too! For the complete party experience, you can’t forget dessert either! About the absolute easiest thing you can do is make football brownies. You can make your favorite recipe or to keep it really easy, just pick up a tray of brownies from Sam’s Club. Easy & tasty!
Drinks of course are a big part of football parties and for us, with our red & white colors, you can’t go wrong with some classic Coca-Cola. We filled up our big, fun football drink tub with the cans of Coke Classic. I love the look of the big drink tub because it doubles as decor – especially when the drink colors are the team colors! 😉 
Easy Football Party Decor Ideas
If you’re a football fan, you probably have some things around the house already that you can use as decor – team flag, team colors, pennants, a football, etc. You can buy a field table cloth or make a football field table cover. I also like some of the food serving dishes to double as decor – like the DIY football drink tub and the football cups to hold the licorice! 
For some added fun too, I made a super quick & easy pom pom tassel garland. From various games and events, we had so many red & white pom poms sitting around. So, I made a garland out of one!
Easy Pom Pom Tassel Garland
To make these, you just need an inexpensive pom pom in your team’s colors and some twine. I carefully took apart the pom pom in small sections and tied them around a piece of twine (just like the start of tying a shoe). That’s it!! The tassels are full enough that you don’t even really notice the knots.
Repeat for however many tassels you’d like hanging down. The only thing to be careful of is pulling too hard on the plastic (and tearing the strands). If you don’t have pom pom already, you could recreate the look with cut tissue paper! 
Simple to do and creates a nice, fun look – perfect for tailgating or homegating!
We love putting together parties like these. With just a little bit of time, you can have a fantastic spread to help show your spirit! 
To make things extra easy, I picked up everything I needed for our party at Sam’s Club! You can even place a Sam’s Club order online and then pick up in the store! How’s that for easy?! We snagged the 28 cans pack of Coke Classic – perfect for tailgating! There were even quite a few tailgating/football party items like this in the center aisles! 
What are your favorite football party/tailgate tips?
