Best Party Foods for March Madness, Soccer Matches, and Baseball

One person’s trash is another’s treasure when it comes to sport fandom: The same folks who howl at their televisions while basketball players gallop up and down the court are bored to tears by the sight of a baseball diamond or a soccer field on a screen.

As is true of food, there’s no disputing taste. But the shapes of these games are different from one another, and there’s the proper snack for each sport. Baseball’s seventh-inning stretch is not sufficient for enjoying a whole (or even half!) a meal. Although it’s a relatively slow-moving sport, if one looks away from the screen for even a minute, someone could have hit an epic homer.

Take no such risks!

Soccer

Photo credit: Everyday Food

For game time itself, don’t mess around with your sanity, your caloric levels, or your furniture. Take the make-in-advance approach, and do hand pies (particularly ideal for cheering on Brit teams like Arsenal or Manchester United). Yeah, they’re a tad crumbly, but they won’t break a window when they’re hurled against one in a fit of pique over a missed penalty kick.

For halftime, especially for Barcelona or Real Madrid fans, one-pot dishes that can be ladled into bowls, such as paella, are a sweet touch. And soccer’s relatively sizable 15-minute halftime is just long enough to feed people a real meal.

Baseball

Photo credit: StockFood

Take me out to the ballgame… but seriously, don’t feed me anything other than hot dogs. Spring training has started, and with it, the preternatural craving for hot dogs and cold beer creeps in. Give baseball fans things that won’t take their attention off the game; they can load up dogs with all sorts of toppings during the national anthem (we like to wrap dogs in bacon, and offer guacamole as a topping option), and then not take their eyes off the screen again.

For the seventh-inning stretch, if you’re feeling generous, bust out a bowl of punch. These people will be out of your home in a couple of innings, anyways, so no need to fear them getting (quite so) hammered.

Basketball

Photo credit: StockFood

Soccer fans can be rabid, and baseball fans obsessive, but basketball fans are, arguably, the jumpiest—nearly as much so as the athletes at whom they’re screaming. Play to that tendency with the easiest food of all: We’re talkin’ popcorn shrimp you broil instead of deep-frying, devils on horseback cooled just enough that people who are busy yelling don’t burn their mouths on them, and jalapeño poppers. Jumpy things for jumpy people.