Have you ever tried to get one of those vanity license plates that show your team spirit or even better, trash you biggest rival? Chances are you may have, only to find out some other fan like yourself has already registered that license plate. No need to feel down that someone “stole” your idea…
We recently discovered Tailgate Tags from Lookin’ Sporty. Tailgate Tags are aluminum U.S. State background license plates that can be customized to reflect a slogan or message of your choice. They even have a variety of pre-made tailgate tags geared towards specific fan bases, i.e. Alabama license plates that say “Roll Tide” or a Louisiana plate that says “Who Dat?” for the New Orleans Saints fans. It probably won’t be long before the folks at Lookin’ Sporty start making Texas plates that say “Hook ‘Em” for Texas fans, “Gig ‘Em” for Texas A&M Fans or even “Guns Up” for the Texas Tech fans.
Upon learning about these Tailgate Tags, we also discovered that Lookin’ Sporty can also do customized license plates from all 50 states.
Lookin’ Sporty offers two styles of customizing your novelty license plate. They can customize your plate with vinyl lettering in the saying of your choice for $17.95 or with a process called sublimation for $19.95. With sublimation, they apply ink directly to the plate which is a permanent process. All novelty license plates are made of aluminum just like the real license plates the states officially issue.
After discovering these novelty car tags, we thought it would be fun to have a few made up custom to see how they turned out. The first one we requested, being an alumnus of the University of Oklahoma, was an Oklahoma license plate. Rather than doing something trite and expected like “Boomer” or “Sooners”, we went in a different direction. We decided to poke a little fun at the Oklahoma Sooners’ bitter rival… the University of Texas. And in keeping with the limitation of only six letters or numbers to make it look like an authentic license plate issued by the state of Oklahoma, we went with “TX SUX”. We chose to hang that one on the wall in the office next to some of our favorite Sports Illustrated covers from over the years..
The next novelty tag we had made is a little less “in your face” and takes some explaining if you are not a die-hard Cal State Fullerton baseball fan. We chose to go with the Nebraska license plate with the numbers “79 84 95 04”. Assuming you are not a Cal State Fullerton baseball fan and may not understand what that means, here is your explanation.
The College World Series is played every year in Omaha, Nebraska. The the eight most elite college baseball teams advance to Omaha, Nebraska to play for the National Championship. Cal State Fullerton has advanced to the College World Series 16 times and has won the College World Series four times. Can you guess which years they won those national championships? 1979, 1984, 1995 and 2004. Hence the Nebraska license plate with the numbers “79 84 95 04” on it.
As you can see in the image above and below, we chose to place our customized license plate on the swing arm of our Cal State Fullerton tailgating grill.
These tags are so real and believable that we need to warn you that when using these tags, please do not replace your state issued tags with these. Hang your Tailgate Tags off your pop-up tent while tailgating or the front of your car if your state does not require a state issued tag to be visible from the front.
After thoroughly checking these customized novelty license plates out for ourselves, we are going to deem them “Tailgate Approved”. The limitations are only limited by your imagination. Choose a state, choose a slogan that would look good on a license plate and for around $20 or less, you can express yourself in a whole new way. Maybe even tie a string around the tailgate tag, hang it around your neck and try to get some TV time while inside the game.
Vinyl Customized Plates will run you $17.95 and Sublimated Customized Plates cost $19.95. All license plates are standard size 6″ x 12″ to accommodate any and all vehicles and to look absolutely realistic.
To check out the plate styles or order a custom one of your own, visit: lookinsporty.com