Students looking for somewhere to watch the football game this Saturday can attend the Student Government Association-sponsored game watching party.
The event will be held in the Brown Lupton University Union Auditorium at 2:30 p.m. and there will be free gameday food, such as a nacho bar or possibly a food truck, representative Allegra Hernandez said.
“The idea is that you will have the community atmosphere of a regular game,” Hernandez said. “Everybody is there, everybody is enjoying it, and it’s not just you and a few friends, it’s TCU coming together to watch, hopefully, the next Heisman winner win.”
Students can also enter a giveaway to win two Championship Club Level tickets to the next home football game against Kansas. These seats are on the west side of the stadium, opposite the student section, and include padded arm chair seats, a free buffet and free non-alcoholic drinks.
There will also be tailgate games such as corn hole or ladder ball for students to play at the watch party, and a screen that SGA Vice President of Operations Ryker Thompson said he guarantees is probably bigger than anything students could find at a house party.
“I love gamedays on campus, and so when you have a certain number of home games, why not try to recreate something on a smaller scale like that for away games?” Thompson said. “This is a very miniature gameday atmosphere. It’s also really exciting to be around a lot more people than you would be at a house.”
There are still some parts of the event that have not been finalized, but Thompson said they were looking into getting a student organization to perform at halftime and renting beanbags for students to watch the game in.
Thompson said the idea for this game watching party came about after the success from the Minnesota game watching party, which had a few hundred people in attendance. He said he had several students approach him over fall break asking him to do another party for the Oklahoma State game.
“It seemed like there was a lot of support for it,” Thompson said. “So we decide to do it again.”
While there are currently no plans to do this again for the last away football game against Oklahoma, Hernandez said there is potential for away game watching parties to become a regular event next year, potentially sponsored by TCU Athletics.
“I think there is a lot of vision for it, there just needs to be a need and that’s what we’re testing out right now,” Hernandez said. “If the desire is there, it’ll happen.”