The 13 Best Deals on Chicken Wings for Football Season

There’s no way we can talk about game day wings without including this major sports bar franchise. Sure, BWW is the official sports bar of March Madness, a totally different game, but the fact is, the chicken is the perennial lede. There are a whopping 26 sauces on offer as of today, including the returning Hot BBQ (an awesome mix of buffalo and barbecue) and the Bulleit Bourbon, both of which will be available through the end of the year.

Whether you prefer poppable all-white meat or the more traditional bone-in wings, BWW has Party Wings packages to suit your tastes. You can get quantities of 50, 100, or 150 with up to two sauces and two dips for the included carrot and celery sticks, and the boneless wings are a good $10 cheaper, depending on location. If you aren’t committed to that many, or you want to mix and match, you can request up to 30 wings in a regular order.

Wingstop offers 40-, 50-, 75-, and 100-piece party packs that are great for a crowd… and for the indecisive. These let you mix or match bone-in and boneless chunks, and you can pick up to four flavors in one order. Four dips are included, as are two large orders of fries and veggie sticks. You can also choose to upgrade your fries from the seasoned fries or extra veggies to cheese fries, Louisiana Voodoo Fries, Buffalo Ranch Fries, and Cajun Fried Corn for under $2 each.

Note: for the wings themselves and the upgraded sides, prices vary wildly—going classic or half-and-half with boneless came out to $73.39 at a Nassau County store on Long Island, but it’s only $59.80 in the Atlanta suburbs. Discrepancies aside, though, it’s nice that Wingstop is committed to not raising prices, whatever those prices might be in your area.

Throughout my high school days on Long Island, the thing to do was drive around aimlessly and end up at Applebee’s after 10 p.m. for half-off apps. So I’m not sure how much nostalgia is flavoring my fondness, but damn do I love these tangy, high-acid boneless buffalo wings. If someone brought a 30-piece tray to a Game Day party, you’d best believe I’d pretend to care about football just to discreetly shovel these in my mouth in the corner. Teenage dreams, indeed.

Applebee’s portions its catering for 6-8 guests, hence the quantity, but the good news is that a) you can always get more and b) it’s only $37.99. The menu also offers twice-battered Double Crunch Bone-In Wings if you prefer, or a tray of chicken tenders with honey dijon mustard. Get all of them and that’s the 2-3 recommended dishes for a party of 10 right there.

TGI Fridays might have 50-cent wing nights to entice dine-in customers, but the good news is that the wings are available as to-go as well. Choose from Frank’s RedHot Buffalo, Apple Butter BBQ, Nashville Hot, Dragon-Glaze, or Garlic Parmesan. Plus, for takeaway there are the bonus flavors Korean Red Chili, Whiskey Glaze, and Blaze It.

Options include a 24- or 48-count traditional wing platter, a 36- or 72-count boneless wing platter, or a combo platter with an unspecified breakdown of the two. You can also opt for the Fridays™ Whiskey Glaze Sesame Chicken Strips Platter, also in an unspecified amount but for only $28.79 at my nearest location. To view and order, keep scrolling on the regular menu until you get to Family Meals & Platters.

The word burger might be in the title, but did you know Smashburger offers chicken tenders and wings, too? I didn’t, so I was surprised to learn about the Crispy Chicken Tender Bar, sold through the catering menu and broken out into per-person quantities and pricing. These packages come with ranch, BBQ, and ketchup as dipping sauces. The 24-piece wings are available tossed in BBQ sauce, Sweet Baby Ray’s Buffalo sauce, Garlic Rosemary with Signature Smash seasonings, and Scorchin’ Hot in Nashville Hot sauce for $45.

Wing lovers can get their fix from Chili’s, which sells a 33-piece Party Platter of boneless wings for $35 or two dozen in-bone joints for $38, both of which are intended to serve six people. You get your choice of three sauces (buffalo, BBQ, or honey chipotle), so you can opt for one of each, or mix and match, or match and match. The menu also features Chicken Crispers, which are fried tenders by the dozen, for the same price.

Popeyes has long since established itself as the chicken sandwich GOAT. But let’s not forget that its goodness goes deep down to the bone. Marinated, double-breaded, and beautifully fried, the bone-in chicken made millions “love that chicken from Popeyes” long before the brand got buns, hon. Let’s make football season aour excuse to fall in love with the menu all over again.

Popeyes always has a 16-piece Signature Chicken Box, but now the chain has made the game-changing decision to branch out into wings marinated in its own signature flavors. Boxes of 36, 48, and 60 pieces are available to order.

Add to this roster a new, limited time-only Sweet ‘N Spicy flavor (featuring a blend of chili, garlic, and ginger) and Ghost Pepper flavor. Both are only available while supplies last and might get pulled off the menu at any moment, so maybe don’t wait till week 2 of NFL season to order them.

If you’re still craving bone-free, the nuggets are sold by the dozen, so you can order 48 as one menu item and toss them in sauce yourself.

This below-the-radar chain, over 70 years old, offers more than your average truck stop chicken. Granted, all 1,200 locations are at highway-adjacent rest stops, gas stations, and convenience stores, but that certainly doesn’t mean you have to be on a road trip to pick up this double-battered, never-frozen chicken and perhaps the biggest tenders from any chicken chain in the U.S.

In store, Chester’s offers several options for larger orders. Starting in mid-September, Chester’s is launching its new $19.99 Mix-N-Match Flavor Pack, which offers 24 boneless chicken bites, tossed with up to three sauces of your choice and three more sauces on the side. You can’t order online, but you can plan ahead by calling in your request old school, on an actual phone, and scheduling your pickup.

I was born too late to associate Roy Rogers with the country singer who allowed his name to be licensed to the fast food brand (due to a beef with fellow roast beef purveyor Arby’s… it’s a long story), but I’m old enough to have grown up enjoying Roy Rogers’ superior fried chicken. This was the brand of choice for my family, as KFC’s original was soggy and more expensive, Pudgie’s skinless chicken left out the best part, and Popeyes hadn’t made it to the Northeast yet. I was among the many who shed a nostalgic tear for when the last standing Roy Rogers on Long Island closed down, but was cheered to hear of the reboot that kicked off in 2003 and remains ongoing.

So if you’re an NFL fan in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, or Virginia, consider pairing your football viewing with a Roy Rogers 16-piece for $35.99, or the seasonal Tailgate MVP Meal, which adds on three sides and eight biscuits for $11 more. Or find Catering on the navigation and get 20 pieces for the same price as 16, or order 50 or 100… and ship me the extras.

Want to change things up? Then consider this Dallas-based Guatemalan chain, whose chicken sandwich unexpectedly slapped and whose chicken on a bone is so beloved by Central Americans, they fly with buckets of the stuff. Pollo Campero sells Value Catering Trays in bundles of 30, 50, and 100 pieces with sides, or 50 or 100 pieces of just the bird.

The fried chicken is good, albeit not very crunchy—but to me, the grilled is what’s up. It’s marinated in deep citrus and herb flavors that penetrate throughout the meat. If you’re undecided, a party tray can split the difference for you: half grilled, half fried. Another option is to go all dark meat. (More gaminess for the big game.)

Pollo Campero’s answer to wings, though, is an order of Camperitos, boneless white meat bundles that come 40 to a tray with your choice of two sauces, including ranch, buffalo, BBQ, and Signature Campero.

Use the promo code 15CATER23 for 15% off all catering orders this season.

Obviously, we can’t talk about fried chicken without mentioning the Colonel, whose buckets were made for game-day noshing. I could happily sit on the couch with a Fill-Up Box in my lap while staring at the TV for hours. Okay, that box is technically meant for sharing, but the iconic buckets offer up to 16 pieces at a time, and the tenders boxes go up to the same quantity.

The new nuggets, meanwhile, can be ordered in quantities up to 36 pieces, and the updated website copy blatantly describes them as the “perfect game day food.” This order comes with your pick of six sauces on the side (which you can mix up into a single unholy concoction, if you wish), but it should be noted that the nuggets only come in Original right now, and not the vastly superior Extra Crispy variety.

Did you know that most supermarket deli counters have fried chicken on the bone that you can buy in mass quantities at a great price? It’s honestly one of the best deals out there, and some grocery chains serve up legitimately good fried chicken. In the Northeast, I like Stop & Shop, which will make you 50 or 100 pieces, and ShopRite, which sells in quantities of 48 or 96. For the latter, be sure to specify you want it as a hot food tray, or it might arrive as a disappointing heat-and-eat option.

But the best of all supermarket fried chicken counters is Publix, which sells hot, oversized pieces of fried chicken in orders of 50, 100, 150, and 200 without so much as flinching. One day’s notice is all they need, as opposed to the two days required at both Stop & Shop and ShopRite. If you don’t want to deal with bones, there are the popcorn chicken trays (both spicy and mild), which you can order in quantities that serve 8, 20, or 30 people.

While Arby’s technically doesn’t have a catering option, who’s to stop you from purchasing an exorbitant amount of individual orders of chicken (barring any supply chain hiccups or other inventory issues)? You can always throw them onto a serving platter and blow everyone’s frickin’ minds when they find out you got them from a fast food chain. Available only through the end of October, Arby’s has chicken again, in the form of both Buffalo Boneless Wings and Hot Honey BBQ Boneless Wings. You can buy them in 9-piece quantities.