Finding Your Football Family
For millions of NFL fans, Sunday football is about more than watching a game. It’s about watching your team with your people. But what happens when you no longer live anywhere near your team?
A Green Bay Packers fan living in Philadelphia, a Pittsburgh Steelers fan who moves to Boston, or a Buffalo Bills fan who relocates to Los Angeles faces the same problem every Sunday: Where are my people watching the game?
These “displaced fans” are one of the most passionate communities in sports. They may live hundreds or thousands of miles from their hometown, but their connection to their team hasn’t changed. And across America, local sports bars have become their home stadiums away from home.
Packers Fans Have Built “Local Lambeaus” Across the Country
Few teams demonstrate the power of displaced fans better than the Green Bay Packers. Green Bay is the smallest market in major American professional sports, yet Packers fans can be found practically everywhere. Recognizing that enormous national following, the Packers created Packers Everywhere in 2011 to help fans find bars, restaurants and other Packers fans when they live or travel outside Wisconsin. Today, Packers Everywhere says its network includes more than 1,500 bars, restaurants and fan clubs around the world.
The team even describes participating Packers bars as a “local Lambeau” — a place where Packers fans can gather every game day even when Lambeau Field is a thousand miles away.
Steelers Nation Really Is a Nation
The Pittsburgh Steelers have one of the most recognizable traveling fan bases in American sports. The Terrible Towel isn’t confined to Pittsburgh. You’ll see it waving in sports bars from Florida to California — and around the world. The Steelers have formalized that community through Steelers Nation Unite, which supports official Steelers fan clubs and Steelers bars.
Bills Mafia May Be the Ultimate Displaced-Fan Community
The Bills operate an official Bills Backers network specifically designed to connect Bills fans outside Buffalo. Today, the organization says there are more than 600 Bills Backers chapters worldwide.
The Problem: Finding These Communities Is Still Harder Than It Should Be
The Packers, Steelers and Bills have all recognized the value of helping displaced fans find each other. But they’re solving the problem primarily one team at a time. The information is fragmented across team websites, Facebook groups, Reddit threads, Google searches, bar websites and word of mouth. There should be one place where sports fans can answer a very simple question: Where are my people watching the game?
That’s where Tailgate comes in. Tailgate is a watch-party discovery platform designed to connect sports fans with the bars and communities gathering around their teams. The idea isn’t to replace communities like Packers Everywhere, Steelers Nation Unite or Bills Backers. It’s to take the behavior those communities have already proven works and make it easier to discover across sports, teams and cities.
Sports Are Better When We Watch Together. Never Watch Alone.