What Is the Florida-Georgia Game Nickname? The Controversial Phrase That Started It All

The Gist:

• The Florida-Georgia football game originally had the nickname of the World's Largest Cocktail Party.
• After a lot of underage drinking and destruction among fans, the nickname is no longer widely used.
• The two teams and their fan bases still cannot decide on what nickname should be in its place instead.

While football season is full of entertaining games all across the country, college football fans always tend to focus on the exciting matches between long-standing rivals — that tend to stir up a ton of school spirit and competition.

One big game that takes place each year is between the University of Florida and the University of Georgia, and it's been going on for decades. What is their highly-anticipated match known as? Well, that's a long story.

For years the game between the University of Florida Gators and the University of Georgia Bulldogs was dubbed as the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party, based on the impressive tailgates and massive turnouts.

In fact, this annual matchup has attracted an attendance of over 75,000 people in the past, which is impressive for a college football game. To put the number into perspective, NFL games have an average of less than 70,000 people total in attendance.

With these large crowds come a lot of fans who decide to get very intoxicated before the game starts. And some people take their drinking to a level that is quite unbecoming.

There were several games that resulted in drunk misbehavior. In the '80s, unfortunately, several instances of excited fans ripping down goalposts in celebration of their team winning zapped the fun right out of the occasion.

In 2010, there were well over 200 citations given out to underage attendants who had possession of alcohol. With all of this in mind, the city of Jacksonville, Flor. stopped using the nickname in 1988. By 2006, broadcasters had also dropped the moniker.

While it isn't the official nickname of the game anymore, you can still hear some OG fans still use the phrase today.

After the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party nickname was effectively banned, fans from both sides were eagerly looking for a new nickname to take its place. The problem is that they can't agree on one.

While the Bulldogs fanbase now labels it the Georgia-Florida game, the Gators have called it the Florida-Georgia game for years. It's even gotten to the point where the head coaches of each team (Florida's Steve Spurrier and Georgia's Kirby Smart) have argued about it on social media.

The nickname goes back and forth based on which team is hosting the game each year, yet some fans aren't bothered by this. Needless to say, the rivalry between the Gators and the Bulldogs doesn't stop at what's happening on the field — it's a consistent battle between the players, the coaches, and their iconic fanbases year-round.