Use your outdoor Man Cave as a Home Tailgating Space

It’s football season, and you’re sad. You’ve relocated to a new city, and your favorite NFL team is now hundreds of miles away, far beyond the limits of your time and budget. You turn on the TV to watch, but without your friends, your tailgating food, and even the lousy weather, it’s just not the same.

father-and-son-with-football

Take heart. You can run an end-around play and turn this fumble into a game-winning touchdown. Obviously, you can’t uproot your team and bring them to you, but you do have options for enhancing your viewing experience without breaking the bank for eight trips back home–or eight trips to road games–ever year.

A great sports viewing experience can go right along with some of the other cool components you can include in your outdoor living space. You can tailgate just as successfully with your friends and fellow fans, all without the hassle and expense of traveling. A couple of great games from now, you’ll see just how amazing the experience can be.

And you can do it for more than just football. Grab the phone number for DIRECTV and start investigating what options you’ve got for enjoying sports in your outdoor space, and then start planning how to get a real-life stadium or arena experience right at home.

Television

Let’s start with the obvious thing. There is no viewing party without some viewing, so you need a TV as the center of the whole event. For people who’ve grown up thinking that televisions were delicate electrical instruments, it can be hard to perceive an outdoor application for one, but it’s possible.

Think about the proper way to get power and protection to the TV. Consider the angle of the sun during the times of the day when you’re most likely to tune in, and attempt to situate things so that neither the screen nor your eyes get too much UV when the game is on. Make sure your brightness is sufficient for daytime viewing as well.

Food

Baked salmon on the grill with fire

 

Is there anything as close in second place behind TV as food when it comes to sports? Unlikely. The ability to grill, chill, and fry is critical to the success of any attempt to watch sports outdoors. Your living space should have a means of cooking food, storing cold items, and getting beverages down to the appropriate temperature.

Of course, there are as many ways to cook as there are items to cook, but think about incorporating your existing home gas lines for grills if you prefer blue flame cooking over charcoal. If briquettes are your thing, plan for storage space for extra bags along with the requisite lighter fluid and always-scarce matches.

Think about refrigeration too. You can have an electrical chilling option, or you can simply build in a nice cooler for ice-powered chilling–a little more authentic for an outdoor meal.

Seating

Your hope is that every game is good enough to keep you standing during most of the action, but there are still commercials and timeouts to endure. So make a plan for cool outdoor seating. Choose comfortable furniture or built-in units that can tolerate your climate, and don’t forget to buy based on adult sizes. Lightweight furniture can’t handle excited men slumping into their seats after a bad play.

While much of what you use for seating may be permanent, be sure to keep things gracious for company. Have enough space for extra chairs to be set up so that the infrequent viewer feels welcome.

Whether you’ve actually relocated away from your team (or seen it locate away from you), or you simply want to stay home and enjoy your sports, your outdoor space can be an amazing place to watch the action with all the comforts of the tailgating experience–without the $20 parking fees and the 20-minute lines for the bathroom.

Article Submitted By Community Writer

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