Football is here: 6 tips to make this your best season ever
Aug 29, 2016, 4:31 PM | Updated: Sep 7, 2016, 11:23 am
As the heat of the summer starts melting away, the fall football season starts kicking into gear.
With a little preparation, you can make the 2016 season the best ever and impress your friends and family with your tailgating and pigskin party skills.
Here are some tips for becoming the football hostess with the mostest.
Ramp up the recipes
You don’t have to be a gourmet, but you can impersonate one. Start by watching the Food Network to learn how to make traditional favorites like fried chicken or unique treats like homemade maple bacon crunch ice cream. If you want more, the network offers a slew of tips for gameday parties. To make your TV time more efficient, record the shows you don’t want to miss with a system like Contour from Cox that allows you to record up to 1,000 hours of programming.
Decorate and customize
Whether you are tailgating or watching the game at home, you can make the experience more enjoyable with a few football-theme and team-customized decorations. Fortunately, with a little creativity, you don’t have to spend a lot of cash. If you are not good at coming up with your ideas, buzzfeed.com has 41 you can copy — everything from how to decorate a cooler to making a tailgate beer pong table.
Be informed
Don’t be the person who sits down to watch the game and asks: “What teams are playing?” One way to bone up on Arizona or ASU college football information is to watch Pac-12 Arizona. Live events include football, men’s and women’s basketball and Olympic sports. On Cox Communications, Pac-12 Arizona is available on channels 75 or 1075 (for HD). There is also a range of programming to help viewers stay informed and get stats and scores on your TV screen—without interrupting the game with the Contour Sports App.
Stay cool
In Arizona, early season football takes place in hot weather. If you’re tailgating at the stadium, hydration is critical and it is also important to keep foods cool so they don’t spoil. You can solve both problems by freezing some bottled water before the game. The icy bottles will help keep food in the cooler cold, but they also provide liquid refreshment when the day heats up.
Have back-up games
One of the worst possible scenarios at a football-watching party is to have a game that’s a dud. If that happens, it’s good to have a great sports pack with multiple games and options so you can switch to a more entertaining contest. With the right system, you can even record several games at once so you don’t have to miss any of the contests you want to see. Smart Search and Voice Remote make it easy to find any matchup.
Be thematic
One Boston-based NFL tailgating aficionado describes how he customizes food based on the opposing teams in any given week. For example, when they played the Buffalo Bills, “We had ground buffalo-meat burgers, wings, and buffalo shrimp. And for the Saints we had a lobster pot of sweet northern jambalaya.”
Just because you are at the game doesn’t mean you need to miss out on postgame interviews and analysis. Set your TV to record pregame and postgame shows so you watch them when you get home. Go ahead and record the game for good measure. You never know when there will be a game-changing play you want to watch over and over.
Cox has been in business for more than 100 years. Get peace of mind from a company you trust. Bundle your Homelife package with all your other Cox services—including Contour TV, High Speed InternetSM, and Digital Telephone—for time-saving convenience.