The Ultimate Game Day Party Guide

Hosting a game day party this year? This is the ultimate guide to hosting the best football party of the year – what food to serve, how much to serve, how to get ready for the big day, and even football party games for kids! 

The Ultimate Game Day Party Guide

Every year I send out an annual survey to my email subscribers to see what kind of posts I can write that will best help them.

This year on the survey, one of the questions I asked was “what is the thing you find the hardest or need most help with for planning a party?” I received a whole variety of answer but within those answers, it seemed like people needed help with the same handful of things.

With the biggest game day in football coming up soon, I thought it might be helpful to put together my game day party playbook to give some of you ideas to plan your own game day party! I’ve broken it into five parts based on the responses to my survey to give you everything you need to know for one touchdown worthy party!

• How to decorate – simple decoration ideas, themed decorations
• What to do – games and activities for kids and adults
• What to eat – easy food ideas, menu planning ideas, and how much to serve
• How to get ready – cleaning the house, what to prep, when to start

One thing I love about a good game day party is that it’s pretty easy to come up with decoration ideas – just look at what appears on a football field. These are just some easy Super Bowl party ideas that I’ve used before and you can mix and match them however you want.

Use a piece of green turf from a home improvement store as your tablecloth, turn it into a football field like I did in this party with a little white tape. Or go even simpler with a green tablecloth that you add tape to, not quite as realistic but still presentable.

Create your own field goal post using this tutorial with PVC pipe. Both are simple and really effective.

Incorporate “plays” using X’s and O’s on a chalkboard, backdrop, or even on printables.

Use these free football printables to add fun designs and moments to your party – I’ve got a banner, food labels, and cupcake picks here that might work for you! Or if you’re cheering for a specific team, use these Super Bowl party printables to add team specific elements!

Add other elements to your party that are typical of football games – cheerleader pom poms, cones, a football, foam hands, and more.

If all else fails, just put your food in football shaped bowls or make football shaped food and call it good. I have this set of football shaped serving dishes and they’re perfect!

If you’re going to skimp somewhere, skimp on decorations and focus more on making sure you have good food and Super Bowl games. No one is going to notice whether or not you had matching printables on your water bottles.

This is my specialty. I know people come to a game day party to watch the game but that doesn’t mean you can’t still do other things. In fact, I think the other things are what makes the party so memorable, but I’m a bit obsessed with games.

Game Day Games Adults

We have all sorts of fun Super Bowl games that don’t take away from the actual game itself but actually add to it. Try one of these this year for the adults (and older kids/teens).

• Super Bowl commercial bingo – this is one of the most popular posts on my site, people play it over and over again every year! If you want something less commercial specific, this football bingo game is great too!
• Super Bowl cities game – a fun game that will have you guessing which of the teams’ cities something is associated with.
• Super Bowl trivia – generic trivia about past Super Bowls!
• Pick a Play game – a fun game to play at the beginning of the game and the half that will have guests picking if they think it’ll be a run or pass!
• Souper scorers game – this fun game gives people a player on one of the two teams and if that player scores, they win a prize! It’s a low-effort but super fun one!
• Super Bowl squares – one of the most classic Super Bowl games and one of my favorites!
• Guess the game – this one works for any game day party and will have people guessing things like who will win the coin toss, who will score first, and so on!
• Cup football game – while this one works okay for kids, it’s definitely more fun with competitive people like teens and adults!

Football Party Games for the Kids

The kids on the other hand are less likely to be glued to the TV during the big game. Since we normally like to invite people over a few hours before the game starts to hang out, I put together a handful of kids football party games that would work for the big game as well!

I also made free printable “game day” cards for the kids that I gave out when people came to the party. When they played one of the games instead of giving out individual prizes, I gave them a sticker for each of the games. Then at the end of the night, they traded in their filled in card for one prize like a football game, a treat, etc.

The first two games I’ve already written about in other posts – a quarterback sneak scavenger hunt for kids and a field goal sticker game kind of like pin the tail on the donkey.

I’ve included instructions below for the other three games – touchdown toss, pick six, and first and bowl. I like punny names, can you tell?

First and Bowl

This one is simple – simply put football water bottle labels on full water bottles and line them up on one side of a room. You can either do nine like you would in bowling or 11 like there are 11 players on a football team.

Then tape a line across the room (about 5 feet away for younger kids, go further for older kids and adults).

To play, kids have four tries, just like four downs, to try and bowl over all of the bottles using a football. This was the big fan favorite at our party this year!

Touchdown Toss

This is another simple one. Pick up plastic football cups, mini footballs, and a football field tablecloth at Walmart in the party section.

Tape or glue one of the football cups to each yard line on the tablecloth. Have kids stand at one end of the tablecloth and try to toss the mini footballs into the cups.

Pick Six

I’m not sure why but kids are obsessed with those little rubber ducks and they have them in every shape and color these days. Grab a pack of those ducks, number them 1-6, and put them in a bucket of water.

To play, kids have to pick one of the ducks out of the bowl and try to get a six. If they don’t get a six, they have to do something the number of times they got on the duck – things like jumping jacks, spin in a circle, high fives, etc. Once they’re done, they can pick another duck and keep going doing the same thing until they get a six.

Download the Free Printables

If you’re ready to download the free printables to use this idea, simply click the button below or click here.

What to Eat at a Game Day Party

The biggest game day of the year is pretty much a food holiday, I mean not really a holiday, but you know what I mean. It’s really all about the food, so you don’t want to mess this up. No pressure.

Save yourself a headache and time by ordering things online, making lists so you only have to go to the store once, and creating a menu full of foods you know people will love.

How Much Food to Make

Planning how much to make is one of the hardest parts of party planning. I don’t have a perfect formula for how much to make, so I stick with these five rules.

1. Make things that you don’t mind having leftovers to either send home with people or to eat later. If you make enough white chicken chili for 20 people and only 10 show up, eat chili leftovers for dinner for a few days.
2. It’s better to have too much than to run out.
3. Make enough that everyone can try some of all the savory foods and half the desserts. I’m one of those people who likes to try a lot of different things, so I really just plan for myself.
4. If you’re serving things like chips, don’t open both bags at once. Pour one in the bowl and leave the other closed. If you have to open the second bag later, great. If not, take it back to the store. Just because you’re prepared with a lot of food doesn’t necessarily mean you have to serve it.
5. Have plastic containers or plastic bags all ready to go at the end of the party to send things like desserts home with people that you don’t necessarily want to have in your house.

What to Serve for a Game Day Party

Since the biggest game of the year typically starts right around dinnertime, I recommend making some sort of easy yet substantial dish like a Cincinnati chili or homemade pizza and then round it out with a few appetizers and desserts.

And don’t forget to ask other people to bring things or if you’d prefer they don’t, ask them to chip in for the cost of the food (my family typically splits the food but one person provides it). If you’re picky about what other people bring, assign them to bring things they can’t mess up like drinks, fruit, or even a bag of chips.

Dinner Ideas

• Pizza loaf 
• Garlic parmesan wings
• Homemade pretzel dogs
• Buffalo chicken egg rolls (or buffalo chicken sliders work too)
• Chicken minis
• Pulled pork sliders
• Nacho bar

Appetizers

• Buffalo chicken stuffed potato skins
• Buffalo chicken dip roll-ups
• Football charcuterie boards
• Homemade pepperoni rolls
• Bacon cheese bombs
• Sausage balls
• Soft prezel bites
• Cheddar pigs in a blanket
• Pepperoni pizza roll-ups
• Bacon wrapped smokies
• Crockpot grape jelly meatballs

Dips (you always need dips!)

• Spinach artichoke dip
• Jalapeno popper dip
• Buffalo chicken dip
• Taco dip
• Guacamole
• Queso fundido
• Velveeta sausage cheese dip
• Fruit dip

Desserts

• Football cookies
• Sweet chex mix (you could even make a savory homemade chex mix and a sweet one)
• 7-layer bars
• Snickers poke cake
• Shaped rice krispy treats
• Cream cheese sugar cookies – make them footballs!

For me, I break this down into three main things that I need to get ready – the house, the party, and yourself. I’m going to skip the party portion because that’ll all be covered in the other sections of this game day party playbook!

1 – Clean up the house

Try to pick up your house the night before even if you’re planning on still cooking or making things the day of the party. You’ll feel so much less stressed if you’re walking around and working in a house that is at least fairly clean.

Keep a roll of paper towels and a trash bag on hand while you’re doing day of prep so you can clean up any quick messes right then and there.

I also do the dishes the night before using a little so that all of my dishes are clean the day of in case I need anything. You’ll have more time the night before than you do the day of the party, I promise.

Plan to be done with all prep by about 30 minutes before the party to do one final clean so you’re ready when people show up.

2 – prep for guests

The other thing I always recommend is stocking all of your bathrooms with toilet paper and some sort of bathroom spray like Poo-Pourri to make people feel more comfortable.

Put away anything you don’t want people to break or touch. We always have lots of kids come over when my family comes over so things like my husband’s fancy light sabers get hid up high in the closet.

Last but not least, take your trashcan out if it’s under the sink or in a drawer and put it in plain sight. People are more likely to throw their plates away if they can find the trashcan.

Also, I like to put out a paper goods caddy that has spots for plates, napkins, silverware, cups, and even a Sharpie (for writing names on the cups). I keep mine filled in one of my cabinets and just pull it out right before every party!

3 – Get Yourself Ready

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in sweats with no makeup on when the first person shows up before I forgot to plan some time for getting ready.

First things first, make sure what you want to wear is clean the day before the party. It’s pretty much a guarantee that if I don’t do this – what I want to wear will be dirty. Every single time.

For our most recent game day party, I made cute football jersey t-shirts for each of the kids with their names on them. Giving the kids something custom for them put everyone in a good mood as soon as they arrived!

Wake up, shower if you’re planning on it, put on some makeup, and dress in something comfortable you don’t mind getting dirty because I know during my party prep, I always end up with frosting or flour or pieces of tape all over me.

Last-Minute Day Of Party Tricks

Last but not least, these are a few hints for making the party itself go smoothly.

• Create a plan of attack for when you want to do activities but be totally flexible. Things are going to change. You might have to get rid of a game or start something early.
• Make party assignments. Ask your best friend to be in charge of the cookie decorating table. Ask your husband to be in charge of keeping the drink cooler filled up. Ask your in-laws to stay and help clean up afterwards. And if people offer to help, let them help!
• Give yourself a break and enjoy the party yourself. At the end of the day, it’s about enjoying the company of others, not about how good the food was or how entertained everyone was. Be good company.