Gifts for Football Fans: 36 Gift Ideas for Die-Hard Fans

Buy the thing only their league or their team could have on it. A fan with everything already owns the jersey, the hat and the branded cooler, because those are the gifts everybody else buys. What they do not own is a trophy engraved with their own league name and the season they won it, or a sign carrying the exact joke their group has been repeating for four years. Personalization is the only category where being late to buy does not mean buying the same thing again.

Something with the team on it rather than something with football on it. The gifts coaches actually keep carry the school, the season year and often every player's name, because that is what makes it about that specific team rather than the sport. A tumbler with the full roster engraved on the back does the job better than a generic plaque, and it costs less than most team gift collections raise.

Something dated. Senior night happens once, so the gifts that land carry the name, the number, the school and the class year, which turns one evening into an object rather than a memory. An engraved football or a bottle they take to college both work, and the toiletry bag is the sleeper pick because it goes to the dorm in September.

Both, ideally, and buy them as a pair. The strongest leagues have a trophy that gets passed along and something humiliating for last place, and the joke only works if the punishment is as permanent as the prize. An engraved football for the winner and a toilet bowl trophy or a last place parking sign for the loser covers it, and buying a fresh one each season is how most leagues run it.

Most of this page sits between $19.99 and $50, and that is the right band for a teammate, a league mate or a coach gift you are buying alone. Above that you are into the decanter sets, the duffles and the larger signs, which is normally a group gift or an end of season present from the whole team rather than something one person buys.

Earlier than feels necessary. Nearly everything here is personalized, so it is made to order rather than pulled off a shelf, and the two weeks before Christmas and the week of the fantasy draft are the two worst times to be ordering an engraved anything. Check the individual product page for its current lead time before you commit to a date.

No. Roughly half this page is for people who have never played, which is most of what football gifting is. The fantasy section and the drinkware are aimed squarely at the watching half, and they tend to be the easier buy because most of it personalizes with a name or a league rather than a jersey number.