9 Smartphone Apps for College Football Tailgating

Hey there RV tailgaters! Let’s talk apps – not the food kind, but rather smartphone apps to make your tailgating better.

From music to streaming games to making sure your food is safe and you’ve got the money to do it all, these smartphone apps will keep your tailgate running.

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Smartphone Apps for Tailgating

These days, pretty much everyone has a smartphone.

Even my dad, who finally upgraded from the old flip phone. (Seriously, he has one… just waiting on delivery of a new smartphone to arrive later this week)

And as college football fans (and NFL and NASCAR fans too), smartphone apps can provide a lot of useful information and entertainment options while you are out there tailgating.

Here are the top 8 smartphone apps to make your college football tailgate experience awesome.

How I Picked These Apps

First, these are apps that I use for my own tailgate.

Second, they are available on both Apple and Android phone platforms. This means that they are great for groups, especially the ones that are intended for collaboration (like planning the potluck tailgate menu).

These apps are specifically for the tailgating portion of the RV Tailgate. Not the RV portion. I’ll cover those separately soon.

Google Play / Apple Pay

The smartphone wallets are becoming a bigger deal each year.

Ever since the pandemic, stadiums and teams are trying to find more ways to go contactless and cashless in their stadiums. So they are turning to digital wallets to store credit card information for use in stadium.

And also to even get into the stadium. Many big time teams have now moved to mobile only ticketing. Which means you need these digital wallets installed and setup before you get to the stadium. Some, like Georgia Tech, even use it for on-campus parking.

Often bowl games and other neutral site games will have their own apps or ticketing platforms that you’ll need to download. Ain’t technology grand?

Weather Channel App

Every RV tailgate and even the games themselves are subject to the Weather Gods.

How cold or hot will it be? Will the dogs be OK in the RV during the game?

Will it be raining or windy? Do I need to bring the awning in?

That’s where The Weather Channel app comes in. Get weather forecasts, down to the hour, and radar, to watch that storm coming in. Get severe weather alerts too!

A weather app is essential for any tailgate. But I’m going to give the nod to my home town weather guys at The Weather Channel.

DoPotluck – Organize Your Tailgate Meals

A large tailgate meal can be complicated to organize!

It’s difficult to manage the large potlucks that feed 100 or more people. I’ve done it for several years now.

Make it easier with the DoPotluck app, where your friends can signup to bring their favorite dishes.

No more ending up with 10 desserts and no veggies. Or even worse, five cole slaws.

Winegard TV Signal Finder

Trying to setup your RV satellite or over-the-air antenna to watch all the other football games?

Then you’ll need this Winegard TV Signal Finder app that will help you point your satellite, based on your provider, to the proper place in the sky or configure your OTA antenna.

The Winegard app works with DISH, DIRECTV, BellTV, and Shaw Direct as well as auto-point and manual point antennas and satellites.

iHeartRadio

Bring your hometown radio stations with you on the road.

And some times even your home team announcers with the iHeart Radio app.

There are also lots of playlists that are perfect for tailgating. And podcasts to listen to the talking heads.

“Insert Your Team Here” App

OK, that’s not really the name of the app.

But pretty much all the teams now have apps specially designed for their fans. You can get schedules and team rosters and bios on pretty much all of them.

Some schools have super sized their apps, with things like radio play-by-play streams, feature stories on star players, in-stadium seat upgrades and even in-seat food and drink delivery. Many will also have stadium maps and information to help you through the game day experience.

So do a search for your favorite team to get all the details for your team.

ESPN

Want to stream ESPN+ content? Then get the ESPN app.

It’s also great to keep up-to-date on other scores and stories around college football.

Perfect for staying up-to-date with the latest news for smack talking.

Need to subscribe to ESPN+? You can easily subscribe for just $4.99 per month!

Or add hulu and Disney+ to the package for just $12.99 for all three streams!

Click Here to Find out more about streaming live sports in your RV at the tailgate!

Venmo

Got a group buying tickets together or someone buying your extras? Is someone wanting to contribute to the tailgate fund instead of bringing food or drinks?

Did someone forget their wallet going to dinner for the night before tailgate meal? Or maybe someone needs to pay up on a bet over who will win the game.

There are a million and one reasons why cash will need to change hands but you don’t have cash.

That’s where Venmo comes in. It’s the widely used and my favorite app for easily transferring money person-to-person at a tailgate.

Weber iGrill

Looking for an app to manage everything on your grill? Then look no further than the Weber iGrill app.

iGrill works best with various Weber products like the iGrill 2 Thermometer or the iGrill 3 Thermometer to monitor temperatures.

But you also have lots of preset temperature guides for various cuts of meat and fish to cook your food to perfect temperature to prevent disease spreading! You can set multiple timers too, so you know exactly when to flip or pull the food off the grill.

Don’t Forget to Charge the Phone

Without all this app awesomeness, you will eat up the battery pretty quick.

That’s why I keep lots of extra charging cords in my RV. Seriously, you can probably find one for five different generations of Apple and Android products both.

One thing that I really like are the longer 10 foot charging cables like this one for the Apple lightning plugs or this bundle for USB-C type connections common on newer Android phones. The 10 foot and longer cords are great for tailgating.

Another great option is this 4 foot cable that has 4 different charger connections.

Whatever you do, you will want to keep plenty of charging cords for your favorite smartphones on hand.

And you might even want to take along a portable power bank.

What are Your Favorite Smartphone Apps for Tailgating?

Have you found an app that makes tailgating awesome?

Comment below so I can check them out. You might find that I include them next time!

Like these tailgating recommendations? Pin for later!

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