Category: Sports

How To Plan A Football Road Trip

August 15, 2024Megan HerrenSports, Travel

The popularity of football is undeniable. Football fans anxiously await the return of the sport each fall. The season’s opening kickoff stokes the passion of fans of scholastic, college and professional football, prompting a months-long focus on the sport.

Many fans take their love of football on the road each season. In fact, travel has become such a big component of football fandom that the National Football League has made an event of its annual schedule release each spring. Once schedules are released, it’s not uncommon for fans to begin making plans to travel so they can support their team on the road. Whether fans intend to drive, fly or take another route to the game, they can consider these tips to make the most of their football road trip this season.

Plan Early

The earlier fans begin planning, the more likely they are to get great tickets, budget-friendly travel deals and comfortable lodging. Schedules are typically released many months before the season begins, and fans are urged to begin planning their trips once they can confirm the date of the game they would like to attend.

Consider Sponsored Travel Packages

Individual teams, leagues or private fan clubs may organize travel packages to particular games for interested fans. Such packages can save fans the legwork of planning their own football travel weekend, as they typically include tickets to a game and lodging. Some packages even include bus or airfare and pregame meet-ups with fellow fans at an establishment close to the stadium.

Confirm You Can Get Tickets

Apps and websites like SeatGeek, Stubhub and Ticketmaster ensure it’s possible to get tickets to any game on the schedule in a given season. However, fans should do a little research into ticket prices prior to booking any other components of the trip. Much has been made of consumer demand for live event experiences after restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic were lifted. For example, the entertainment company Live Nation reported a 32 percent increase in revenue during the third quarter of 2023. That heightened demand has driven up the cost to attend live events in many cities. Fans who want to take their fandom on the road this football season should visit team websites and secondary market sellers to confirm if ticket prices are within their budgets. If so, purchase tickets and then begin planning the rest of the trip.

Don’t Forget To Consider Weather

Though football fans tend to be a hardy breed, weather still merits consideration when planning a football travel weekend. The tail end of a football season can be cold, particularly when traveling to parts of North America where winter typically begins early. If cold weather figures to dampen your travel experience, look for indoor stadiums or follow your favorite team to regions like the southeastern or southwestern United States, where temperatures tend to remain welcoming even as the football season reaches its latter stages.

Traveling on the road with your favorite team is a great way to take your football fandom to the next level. That’s particularly true when fans give ample thought to certain variables prior to booking a trip.

The Best Ways to Cheer on Favorite Sports Teams

August 22, 2019MBEhleSports

Autumn weather calls to mind sipping warm cider and raking leaves. But for sports fans, fall is all about sports.

American football, field hockey, ice hockey, and basketball are just a few of the sports that make autumn an exciting time for sports fans. Even the most ardent fan may have room for improvement when it comes to supporting his or her team. Here are a few ideas to make cheering for a favorite team even more enjoyable.

Attend a game

Fans who never get to see their team play in person may miss out on a unique experience. The atmosphere and energy of sitting in a stadium or arena cannot compete with a television simulcast. Ardent fans can resolve to attend a game in person this season. Enroll in employee entertainment clubs to receive discounts on sports tickets among other types of entertainment.

Host a game watch

Build camaraderie with fellow fans by hosting a game watch. A routine sports night is a great way to get together with friends and family members. Gather a group at your house each week to watch a favorite team battle it out on the big screen. Or get together with fellow fans in the community at a sports bar or restaurant, combining a night out on the town with your passion for sports.

Get the kids involved

Spread the love of fandom to a new generation. Schools and youth organizations can encourage children to support local scholastic teams. Organize field trips to sporting events to involve as many students as possible.

Fall sports are heating up, and fans can do their part to support their favorite teams in various ways.

Finding Balance With Extracurricular Activities

August 23, 2018MBEhleAdvice, Healthy, Lifestyle, School, Sports

Many high schools, colleges and universities emphasize their goals of producing well-rounded students. Extracurricular activities teach students important life lessons, provide them opportunities to socialize and often stimulate their minds and bodies in ways that differ from the stimulation provided in the classroom.

Data from the U.S. Census Bureau states that, in 2014, 57 percent of children between the ages of 6 and 17 participate in at least one after-school extracurricular activity. Children are more likely to participate in sports than clubs or lessons, such as music, dance and language, but each of these activities can be beneficial to students’ development.

Students who participate in extracurricular activities may want to limit their participation to 20 hours per week. This is according to a group of professors from Stanford University and Villanova University who have been collecting data on the issue since 2007.

In their report “Extracurricular Activity in High-Performing School Contexts: Stress Buster, Booster or Buffer?”, Jerusha Conner and Sarah Miles found that 87 percent of kids who would be considered to have packed schedules were perfectly happy unless they were doing more than four hours a day.

The “over-scheduling hypothesis” may be overhyped. This is the concern that too much organized activity participation leads to poor developmental outcomes. This hypothesis also suggests that hectic schedules also undermine family functioning, detract from schoolwork and possibly increase the risk of copycat behaviors and excessive competitiveness.

However, in the study “The Over-Scheduling Hypothesis Revisited: Intensity of Organized Activity Participation During Adolescence and Young Adult Outcomes,” researchers J.L. Mahoney and Andrea Vest determined that, controlling for demographic factors and baseline adjustment, extracurricular intensity was a significant predictor of positive outcomes and unrelated to indicators of problematic adjustment (e.g., psychological distress, substance use, antisocial behavior) at young adulthood.

Even though extracurricular activities are largely positive — even when schedules are packed — parents need to be aware of the diminishing returns of too many activities. This is something called the “threshold effect.” Benefits from extracurriculars can level off when too many activities are being juggled.

If a child is experiencing anxiety, sleeplessness or depression, or seems overly stressed, it could be time to reduce students’ time spent doing structured activities. It’s essential that families use the cues given by kids to assess what students can handle. And children should be encouraged to be honest with their parents about their extracurricular activities as well.

American Football: An International Pastime

August 24, 2017MBEhleEntertainment, Seasonal, Sports

According to Nielsen, 111.3 million people tuned in to watch the Super Bowl in early 2017. Almost two-thirds of adults in the United States say they currently watch National Football League games. But American football is no longer relegated to the boundaries of the United States, as it is becoming a global sport. According to the International Federation of American Football, there are 80 countries with organized federations governing the game. Plus, thousands of youth and adult leagues exist all over the world.

The Evolution of Football

Even though soccer has long been a global sport, it seems the other kind of “football” is quickly catching up. The sport known as American football was borne out of the English sports of association football (soccer) and rugby. During the late 19th century, elite Northeastern colleges took up the sport, playing a soccer-type game with rules adopted from the London Football Association. Intercollegiate matches began to spring up at schools such as Rutgers, Princeton, Harvard, and McGill University. Rugby-type rules became preferential among players and spectators. Walter Camp, known affectionately as the “Father of American Football,” transformed the rugby-style game into the one that resembles American football today. Camp brought two key innovations to the game. The opening “scrummage” was eliminated, and a rule was introduced that required a team to give up the ball after failing to advance down the field a specific yardage. Camp also developed the quarterback position, lines of scrimmage and the scoring scale used in football today.

The Injury Controversy

Early games were controversial because of the high rate of injury. Even President Theodore Roosevelt stepped in to ask collegiate teams to revise regulations to make the game less brutal. The committee overseeing the rules would later become known as the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Thanks largely in part to the popularity of college football, professional football began to gain traction with the public. The American Professional Football Association was formed in 1920. That league would later become the National Football League. The first televised NFL game occurred in 1939. Eventually, American football’s popularity would explode.

Sis Boom Rah!

Cheerleaders were introduced to the game in the 1960s. Currently, the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders are the most famous squad. Six teams in the NFL do not have cheerleaders: the Chicago Bears, the Cleveland Browns, the Detroit Lions, the New York Giants, the Pittsburgh Steelers, and the Green Bay Packers. Football games typically last around 3 hours. Average attendance for an NFL game is 66,957 spectators. American football has become a multibillion-dollar industry. What developed on college campuses has grown into a worldwide phenomenon.