I Reckon: Tailgating just became a tool to wage political proxy wars

As USC’s biggest, and perhaps only, resident mega-fan of the Georgia Bulldogs, it is something of a clashing-of-worlds for the 2023 College Football Playoff National Championship, featuring said Bulldogs and the TCU Horned Frogs, to come to sunny Los Angeles. It’s been years since I’ve moved to California, and years since I’ve been back home. A lot of things have changed — like my politics — but one thing has remained a constant: my feverish support for the Dawgs. 

This year’s matchup features two Southern teams, and in the case of the Bulldog fanbase, perhaps the best embodiment of Southern football culture. While USC games are always fun to watch and tailgate for, it doesn’t even begin to compare to game day festivities in the Southeastern Conference. So when it was announced that there would be no tailgating at SoFi stadium leading up to the big game, many fans took to social media sites like Twitter to express their discontent. What gives, Los Angeles?

Initially, I was part of the unsatisfied crowd, even though I literally had no plans to see the game because I have enough resolve to not spend my entire refund check on those tickets. I just like being a part of the mob sometimes. But in the back of my mind, I had reasoned that SoFi and Inglewood rightfully didn’t want any intoxicated Georgia fans (and I guess non-teetotalling TCU fans as well) getting too rambunctious before the game even starts. As it turns out, however, it was the decision of the College Football Playoff committee, a body based in Texas, to ban tailgating — the same stance it took in previous national championship games, including the most recent one in Indianapolis, which the Bulldogs won. 

And yet, like any “controversial” decision to come out of a blue state, conservative politicians jumped all over it, framing it as California’s way of killing the vibe and culture that surrounds college football in the South. One of the biggest names that decided to jump into the dogpile to make something of a culture war out of a molehill was Georgia Governor Brian Kemp. Kemp took to Twitter to roast California for not understanding that “a tailgate with friends & family is the only way to prepare for a big game,” as well as to promise that fans will be able to tailgate when Georgia hosts the National Championship in 2025. That might as well be a political campaign promise, and I’d argue that’s exactly what Kemp wanted it to sound like. 

I do have to point out that tailgates are held at a higher value in the SEC because a considerable number of Southern colleges are still dry, as in they don’t allow the sale of alcoholic beverages inside of their stadiums — unless you have deep pockets and a hankering for overpriced booze: at UGA’s Sanford Stadium, you can indulge in libations if you donate $25,000 over 5 years. The next time you find yourself at the Coliseum watching the Trojan defense learn how to tackle in real-time, just remember your Georgian counterparts can’t buy overpriced hard seltzer in their stadiums like Trojans can. Now you know why Kemp and company are making such a fuss over this fairly minuscule issue.

Football, arguably more than any other sport, is political. If this scuffle shows anything, it is that conservative politicians -— despite their hemming and hawing about how athletes ought to “shut up and play” and despite their own ignorance about local policy in their home state — are more than ready to make the South’s best past-time a proxy for political wars, especially if it can score them a few cheap points with their base, even if their base doesn’t have alumni connections to these college programs. In fact, states with residents who have fewer college degrees tend to be better at college football. 

Kemp isn’t just ragging on California just to rag on them and advocate for the Bulldog fanbase. He and politicians like him know exactly how their generally white base, regardless of college education status, will respond. It’s the same way they’ve responded to other veiled political attempts by conservative politicians to rile them up: blaming it on the politics of far-away liberal places that they view as capable of marginalizing them and their way of living — including the way they engage in athletic entertainment.

Quynh Anh Nguyen is a junior writing about the implications of current Southern political events.