2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

Bowl Coalition The College Football Bowl Coalition was formed through an agreement among Division I-A college football bowl games and conferences for the purpose of forcing a national championship game between the top two teams and to provide quality bowl game ...

Bowl Alliance The Bowl Alliance was an agreement among college football bowl games (specifically the Sugar, Orange, and Fiesta Bowls) for the purpose of trying to match the top two teams in a national championship game and to provide quality bowl game matchups ...

Bowl Championship Series The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was a selection system that created four or five bowl game match-ups involving eight or ten of the top ranked teams in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of American college football, includ ...

College Football Playoff The College Football Playoff (CFP) is an annual postseason knockout invitational tournament to determine a national champion for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the highest level ...

bowl eligibility Bowl eligibility in college football at the NCAA Division I FBS level is the standard through which teams become available for selection to participate in postseason bowl games. When a team achieves this state, it is described as "bowl-eligible". ...

College Football Playoff National Championship The College Football Playoff National Championship is a post-season college football bowl game, used to determine a national champion of the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), which began play in the 2014 college football season ...

Rose Bowl stadium The Rose Bowl is an outdoor athletic stadium located in Pasadena, California. Opened in October 1922, the stadium is recognized as a National Historic Landmark and a California Historic Civil Engineering landmark. At a modern capacity of an all-s ...

Yale Bowl The Yale Bowl Stadium is a college football stadium in the northeast United States, located in New Haven, Connecticut, on the border of West Haven, about 1½ miles (2½ km) west of the main campus of Yale University. The home of the American foot ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

Egg Bowl The Egg Bowl (traditionally named the “Battle for the Golden Egg”) is the name given to the Mississippi State–Ole Miss football rivalry. It is an American college football rivalry game played annually between Southeastern Conference memb ...

Mississippi State Mississippi State University for Agriculture and Applied Science, commonly known as Mississippi State University (MSU), is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university adjacent to Starkville, Mississippi. It ...

Bulldogs The Bulldog is a British breed of dog of mastiff type. It may also be known as the English Bulldog or British Bulldog. It is of medium size, a muscular, hefty dog with a wrinkled face and a distinctive pushed-in nose.Ole Miss Rebels, and the

Iron Bowl The Alabama–Auburn football rivalry, better known as the Iron Bowl, is an American college football rivalry game between the Auburn University Tigers and University of Alabama Crimson Tide, both charter members of the Southeastern Confer ...

, a nickname given to the annual game between the

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = " Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County , LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham , area_total_km2 = 135,7 ...

Crimson Tide and the Auburn

Tigers The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus ''Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on un ...

. In

professional football In professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, participants receive payment for their performance. Professionalism in sport has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larg ...

, the names of the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...

(NFL)'s

Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the game ...

and

Pro Bowl The National Football League All-Star Game (1939–1942), Pro Bowl (1951–2022), or Pro Bowl Games (starting in 2023) is an annual event held by the National Football League (NFL) featuring the league's star players. The format has changed thro ...

are references to college football bowl games. The use of the term has crossed over into professional and collegiate

Canadian football Canadian football () is a sport played in Canada in which two teams of 12 players each compete for territorial control of a field of play long and wide attempting to advance a pointed oval-shaped ball into the opposing team's scoring area (e ...

. A notable example is the annual

Banjo Bowl The Banjo Bowl is the annual rematch game between the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League (CFL) after the Labour Day Classic. While the traditional Labour Day Classic game is always played on the Su ...

between the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and

Saskatchewan Roughriders The Saskatchewan Roughriders are a professional Canadian football team based in Regina, Saskatchewan. The Roughriders compete in the Canadian Football League (CFL) as a member club of the league's West Division. The Roughriders were founded in 1 ...

of the Canadian Football League (CFL). In Canadian university football, which has determined its national champions on the field for several decades, the "bowl games" are the two semi-final games that determine the participants in the

Vanier Cup The Vanier Cup (french: Coupe Vanier) is the championship of Canadian university football. It is organized by U Sports football and is currently played between the winners of the Uteck Bowl and the Mitchell Bowl. It is named after Georges Vanier, ...

national championship game, since 2002 these have been the

Uteck Bowl The Uteck Bowl is one of the two semifinal bowls of U Sports football, Canada's national competition for university teams that play Canadian football. It is held in the easternmost of the two semifinal venues. The Uteck Bowl champion moves on to f ...

and the

Mitchell Bowl The Mitchell Bowl is one of the two semifinal bowls of U Sports football, Canada's national competition for university teams that play Canadian football. It is held in the more westerly location of the two semifinal venues. The winner of this gam ...

. The matchups are determined on a conference rotation basis, with the Uteck Bowl being played at the easternmost host team, while the Mitchell is at the westernmost host team.

History

The history of the bowl game began with the 1902 Tournament East-West football game, sponsored by the Tournament of Roses Association between

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

and

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

, a game which Michigan won 49-0. The Tournament of Roses eventually sponsored an annual contest starting with the 1916 Tournament East-West Football Game. With the 1923 Rose Bowl it began to be played at the newly completed

Rose Bowl stadium The Rose Bowl is an outdoor athletic stadium located in Pasadena, California. Opened in October 1922, the stadium is recognized as a National Historic Landmark and a California Historic Civil Engineering landmark. At a modern capacity of an all-s ...

, and thus the contest itself became known as the

Rose Bowl game The Rose Bowl Game is an annual American college football bowl game, usually played on January 1 (New Year's Day) at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. When New Year's Day falls on a Sunday, the game is played on Monday, January 2. The Ro ...

. The name "bowl" to describe the games thus comes from the Rose Bowl stadium. Other cities saw the promotional value for tourism that the Tournament of Roses parade and Rose Bowl carried and began to develop their own regional festivals which included college football games. The label "bowl" was attached to the festival name, even though the games were not always played in bowl-shaped stadiums. The historic timing of bowl games, around the new year, is the result of two factors—warm climate and ease of travel. The original bowls began in warm climates such as

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban ag ...

,

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is border ...

,

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to th ...

, and

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by b ...

as a way to promote the area for tourism and business. Since commercial air travel was either non-existent or very limited, the games were scheduled well after the end of the regular season to allow fans to travel to the game site. While modern travel is more convenient, all but 5 of 41 bowl games (as of 2016-17) are still located in cities below approximately 36° N. John F

Currently, college football bowl games are played from mid-December to early January. As the number of bowl games has increased, the number of games a team would need to win to be invited to a bowl game has decreased. With a 12-game schedule, a number of teams with only 5 wins have been invited to a bowl game. As of the completion of the 2018 season, the University of Alabama has played in more bowl games than any other school, with 69 appearances (counting

College Football Playoff The College Football Playoff (CFP) is an annual postseason knockout invitational tournament to determine a national champion for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the highest level ...

semifinals and finals). Alabama also holds the record for most bowl victories with 41 under that same metric. As of the 2019 season, the Virginia Tech Hokies holds the official NCAA-recognized record of consecutive bowl berths, along with the longest active streak of consecutive bowl appearances, at 26 straight bowls. Florida State held the record of consecutive bowl berths at 36 bowl appearances from 1982 until 2017. However, it is not recognized by the NCAA due to the NCAA vacated FSU's 2006 Emerald Bowl victory over UCLA due to an academic issue. The Rose Bowl was the only major college bowl game in 1930. By 1940, there were five major college bowl games: the Rose Bowl, the

Sugar Bowl The Sugar Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in New Orleans, Louisiana. Played annually since January 1, 1935, it is tied with the Orange Bowl and Sun Bowl as the second-oldest bowl games in the country, surpassed only ...

(1935), the

Cotton Bowl Classic The Cotton Bowl Classic (also known as the Cotton Bowl) is an American college football bowl game that has been held annually in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex since January 1, 1937. The game was originally played at its namesake stadium i ...

(1937), the

Orange Bowl The Orange Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in the Miami metropolitan area. It has been played annually since January 1, 1935, making it, along with the Sugar Bowl and the Sun Bowl, the second-oldest bowl game in ...

(1935), and the

Sun Bowl The Sun Bowl is a college football bowl game that has been played since 1935 in the southwestern United States at El Paso, Texas. Along with the Sugar Bowl and Orange Bowl, it is the second-oldest bowl game in the country, behind the Rose Bow ...

(1935). By 1950, the number had increased to eight games. This figure of eight bowl games persisted through 1960, but by 1970 the number had increased again, to 11 games. The number continued to increase, to 15 games in 1980, to 19 games in 1990, 25 games in 2000, 35 games in 2010, and 41 games by 2015 (40 games plus two teams playing a second game to determine the National Champion). Up until around the 1950s, the small number of games were played solely on

New Year's Day New Year's Day is a festival observed in most of the world on 1 January, the first day of the year in the modern Gregorian calendar. 1 January is also New Year's Day on the Julian calendar, but this is not the same day as the Gregorian one. Whi ...

, with the only major exception being the holiday occurring on a Sunday. The tradition of not playing bowl games on Sunday initially started from the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl not being held on Sundays for fear of spooking horses tied at churches, but in later years was done to avoid conflict with NFL games. For the 2016–17 bowl season, the 41 games require a little over three weeks, starting December 17 and ending on January 9. While bowl games were originally exclusive to warm cities thought of as winter vacation destinations, indoor stadiums allow games to be played in colder climates. The attendance of 106,869 for the

1973 Rose Bowl The 1973 Rose Bowl was the 59th edition of the college football bowl game, played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, on Monday, January 1. It matched the undefeated and top-ranked USC Trojans of the Pacific-8 Conference with th ...

set the

Rose Bowl Stadium The Rose Bowl is an outdoor athletic stadium located in Pasadena, California. Opened in October 1922, the stadium is recognized as a National Historic Landmark and a California Historic Civil Engineering landmark. At a modern capacity of an all-s ...

record, as well as the NCAA bowl game attendance record.''UCLA Football - 2007 UCLA Football (Media Guide)''. UCLA Athletic Department (2007), page 165 (PDF copy available at www.uclabruins.com) 2002 NCAA Records book - Attendance Records
page 494 (PDF) The Rose Bowl stadium still is the largest capacity stadium and the Rose Bowl game has the highest attendance for post season bowl games. In the 1990s, many bowl games began to modify or abandon their traditional names in favor of selling

naming right Naming rights are a financial transaction and form of advertising or memorialization whereby a corporation, person, or other entity purchases the right to name a facility, object, location, program, or event, typically for a defined period of t ...

s. While some include the traditional name in some form (e.g. the ''

Rose Bowl Game The Rose Bowl Game is an annual American college football bowl game, usually played on January 1 (New Year's Day) at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. When New Year's Day falls on a Sunday, the game is played on Monday, January 2. The Ro ...

presented by

Northwestern Mutual Northwestern Mutual is an American financial services mutual organization based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The financial security company provides consultation on wealth and asset income protection, education planning, retirement planning, investme ...

''), others have totally eliminated their traditional name in favor of solely using their corporate sponsor's name (e.g. the former ''Citrus Bowl'' became the ''

Capital One Bowl The Citrus Bowl is an annual college football bowl game played at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida. The bowl is operated by Florida Citrus Sports, a non-profit group that also organizes the Cheez-It Bowl and Florida Classic. The gam ...

'' for some time after the financial services company

Capital One Capital One Financial Corporation is an American bank holding company specializing in credit cards, auto loans, banking, and savings accounts, headquartered in McLean, Virginia with operations primarily in the United States. It is on the lis ...

bought the naming rights; it later reverted to its original name in 2015). Prior to 1992 most bowls had strict agreements with certain conferences. For example, the Rose Bowl traditionally invited the champions of the

Pac-10 The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS; formerly Division ...

and the

Big Ten The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...

conferences. The Sugar Bowl invited the SEC champion and the Orange Bowl hosted the Big 8 conference champion. These conference tie-ins led to situations where the top-ranked teams in the country could not play each other in a bowl game. The national championship was decided after the bowls, solely by voters for various media polls, who tried to decide which team was best, sometimes based on wins against far inferior teams. As a result, there could be multiple championship titles and no single champion. This led to the term "Mythical National Championship", which is still used to describe high school national champions, since high school sports have state championship tournaments but not national.

Attempts to determine a national champion

Because of the vested economic interests entrenched in the various bowl games, the longer regular season compared to lower divisions of college football, and a desire not to have college players play several rounds of playoff games during final exams and winter recess, the

Division I Bowl Subdivision NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athleti ...

long avoided instituting a playoff tournament to determine an annual national champion. Instead, the National Champion in the Football Bowl Subdivision has traditionally been determined by a vote of sports writers and other non-players. In 1995, the

Bowl Alliance The Bowl Alliance was an agreement among college football bowl games (specifically the Sugar, Orange, and Fiesta Bowls) for the purpose of trying to match the top two teams in a national championship game and to provide quality bowl game matchups ...

, formed by the major bowls and conferences, put in place a system where the two highest ranked teams would play each other, even if they were each affiliated with a different bowl. However, the Pac-10 and Big Ten and the Rose Bowl did not participate. Number 1 vs Number 2 bowl match-ups became far more likely, but were not guaranteed. After the 1997 season, undefeated

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

was ranked first in both major polls, but as the Big Ten champion, they played eighth-ranked Pac-10 champion

Washington State Washington (), officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. Named for George Washington—the first U.S. president—the state was formed from the western part of the Washington ...

in the Rose Bowl. The top Bowl Alliance team, #2 and unbeaten

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...

, faced one-loss, third-ranked

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to t ...

in the Orange Bowl. Michigan won by five on New Year's Day and the next night, Nebraska beat Tennessee (playing with an injury-hobbled

Peyton Manning Peyton Williams Manning (born March 24, 1976) is an American former football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 18 seasons. Nicknamed "the Sheriff", he spent 14 seasons with the Indianapolis Colts and four with th ...

) by 25. The AP kept Michigan as the champion, but the Coaches' Poll jumped Nebraska, playing its final game for retiring coach

Tom Osborne Thomas William Osborne (born February 23, 1937) is a former American football player, coach, college athletics administrator, and politician from Nebraska. He served as head football coach of the Nebraska Cornhuskers from 1973 to 1997 (25 seaso ...

, in part because of their more lopsided victory against a more highly ranked opponent. 2010 BCS Champ

The following season, the Rose Bowl, Pac-10, and Big Ten joined the other bowls and major conferences to form the

Bowl Championship Series The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was a selection system that created four or five bowl game match-ups involving eight or ten of the top ranked teams in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of American college football, includ ...

. The BCS attempted to match the two highest ranked teams in the country based upon calculations from various sources, including statistics and coaches' polls, with one of the four bowl games in the consortium (the Rose Bowl,

Fiesta Bowl The Fiesta Bowl is an American college football bowl game played annually in the Phoenix metropolitan area. From its beginning in 1971 until 2006, the game was hosted at the Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona. Since 2007, the game has been play ...

,

Sugar Bowl The Sugar Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in New Orleans, Louisiana. Played annually since January 1, 1935, it is tied with the Orange Bowl and Sun Bowl as the second-oldest bowl games in the country, surpassed only ...

, and

Orange Bowl The Orange Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in the Miami metropolitan area. It has been played annually since January 1, 1935, making it, along with the Sugar Bowl and the Sun Bowl, the second-oldest bowl game in ...

) rotating the role of "national championship", or beginning in 2006, a dedicated BCS Championship Game rotated among the BCS venues. The BCS Championship Game, while separate from the four main bowls, was still rotated among their sites. The

Coaches Poll The Coaches Poll is a weekly ranking of the top 25 NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) college football, Division I college basketball, and Division I college baseball teams. The football version of the poll has been known official ...

was contractually obligated to recognize the winner of the game as its national champion. However, other polls such as the

AP Poll The Associated Press poll (AP poll) provides weekly rankings of the top 25 NCAA teams in one of three Division I college sports: football, men's basketball and women's basketball. The rankings are compiled by polling 62 sportswriters and broad ...

may deviate and pick a different team, particularly in years when multiple teams were equally worthy of reaching the game. For example, in 2003, one-loss

LSU Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisian ...

won the BCS National Championship over

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New M ...

, but the AP crowned one-loss

USC USC most often refers to: * University of South Carolina, a public research university ** University of South Carolina System, the main university and its satellite campuses **South Carolina Gamecocks, the school athletic program * University of ...

champion after its Rose Bowl win. For the 2014-15 season, the BCS was replaced by a new consortium, the

College Football Playoff The College Football Playoff (CFP) is an annual postseason knockout invitational tournament to determine a national champion for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the highest level ...

(CFP). The new system uses a four-team

single-elimination tournament A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...

, with its participants selected and seeded by a committee; the semi-final games are rotated between pairs of the six member bowls yearly (Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl, then Orange Bowl and

Cotton Bowl Classic The Cotton Bowl Classic (also known as the Cotton Bowl) is an American college football bowl game that has been held annually in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex since January 1, 1937. The game was originally played at its namesake stadium i ...

, and then the Fiesta Bowl and

Peach Bowl The Peach Bowl is an annual college football bowl game played in Atlanta, Georgia since December 1968. Since 1997, it has been sponsored by Chick-fil-A and is officially known as the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl. From 2006 to 2013, it was officially ref ...

). The winners from the two semi-final bowls advance to the

College Football Playoff National Championship The College Football Playoff National Championship is a post-season college football bowl game, used to determine a national champion of the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), which began play in the 2014 college football season ...

, which is played at a neutral site determined using bids. Members of the "

New Year's Six The New Year's Six, sometimes abbreviated as NY6, is an unofficial but commonly used term used to describe the following NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) bowl games: the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Peach Bowl ...

" that are not hosting semi-final games revert to their traditional tie-ins. Like its predecessors, and in contrast to the officially sanctioned NCAA tournaments at lower levels, the College Football Playoff is not officially recognized as an NCAA championship.

Professional bowl games

The

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...

also used the name "bowl" for some of its playoff games. While the

NFL Championship Throughout its history, the National Football League (NFL) and other rival American football leagues have used several different formats to determine their league champions, including a period of inter-league matchups to determine a true national c ...

was not named a Bowl initially, the league instituted the

Pro Bowl The National Football League All-Star Game (1939–1942), Pro Bowl (1951–2022), or Pro Bowl Games (starting in 2023) is an annual event held by the National Football League (NFL) featuring the league's star players. The format has changed thro ...

as the name of its all-star game in 1951, and introduced the Bert Bell Benefit Bowl (also known as the Playoff Bowl) as a matchup of the two second-place teams in each division from 1960 to 1969. When the professional football AFL-NFL merger occurred in 1970, the AFL-NFL World Championship Game became the NFL's championship and is now known as the

Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the game ...

, as it has been named since 1968 (the name was coined by

Lamar Hunt Lamar Hunt (August 2, 1932 – December 13, 2006) was an American businessman most notable for his promotion of American football, soccer, and tennis in the United States. He was the principal founder of the American Football League (AFL) and M ...

after watching his daughter play with a

super ball A Super Ball or Superball is a toy bouncy ball based on a type of synthetic rubber invented in 1964 by chemist Norman Stingley. It is an extremely elastic ball made of Zectron, which contains the synthetic polymer polybutadiene as well as hy ...

). There has also been the

American Bowl The American Bowl was a series of National Football League pre-season exhibition games that were held at sites outside the United States between 1986 and 2005. The league started the ''American Bowl'' series in 1986 primarily to promote American ...

, a preseason match held overseas, and various one-time games informally nicknamed bowls, such as the Bounty Bowl, Ice Bowl, Snow Bowl,

Freezer Bowl In National Football League lore, the Freezer Bowl is the nickname given to the 1981 AFC Championship Game between the San Diego Chargers and the Cincinnati Bengals. The game was played on January 10, 1982, at Cincinnati's Riverfront Stadium, ...

, Fog Bowl, Mud Bowl,

Tuna A tuna is a saltwater fish that belongs to the tribe Thunnini, a subgrouping of the Scombridae (mackerel) family. The Thunnini comprise 15 species across five genera, the sizes of which vary greatly, ranging from the bullet tuna (max length: ...

Bowl, Manning Bowl, Harbaugh Bowl and the proposed (but ultimately canceled) China Bowl. As a result, other professional football leagues used or use the name Bowl for their championships, such as the

World Football League The World Football League (WFL) was an American football league that played one full season in 1974 and most of its second in 1975. Although the league's proclaimed ambition was to bring American football onto a worldwide stage, the farthest th ...

(

World Bowl The World Bowl was the annual American football championship game of the World League of American Football/NFL Europe. The World Bowl was played each year from 1991 to 2007 (except 1993 and 1994). The game was conceived as the final of the NFL-r ...

),

NFL Europe NFL Europe League (simply called NFL Europe and known in its final season as NFL Europa League) was a professional American football league that functioned as the developmental minor league of the National Football League (NFL). Originally f ...

(

World Bowl The World Bowl was the annual American football championship game of the World League of American Football/NFL Europe. The World Bowl was played each year from 1991 to 2007 (except 1993 and 1994). The game was conceived as the final of the NFL-r ...

),

Arena Football League The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 season, making it the third longest-running professional football league in ...

( ArenaBowl),

Indoor Football League The Indoor Football League (IFL) is a professional indoor American football league created in 2008 out of the merger between the Intense Football League and United Indoor Football. It has one of the largest number of currently active teams amon ...

( United Bowl), Great Lakes Indoor Football League (

Great Lakes Bowl The Great Lakes Bowl was an American college football bowl game that was played only once, on December 6, 1947 in Cleveland, Ohio between the Kentucky Wildcats and the Villanova Wildcats. The game was played at Cleveland Stadium with attendance o ...

) and

American Indoor Football Association American Indoor Football (AIF) was a professional indoor football league, one of the several regional professional indoor football leagues in North America. The AIFL began as a regional league with six franchises on the East Coast of the United ...

(AIFA Championship Bowl). The Canadian Football League nicknames one of their rivalries as the

Banjo Bowl The Banjo Bowl is the annual rematch game between the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League (CFL) after the Labour Day Classic. While the traditional Labour Day Classic game is always played on the Su ...

and another QEW Bowl (also known as the Battle of Ontario); like most Canadian sports leagues, however, the CFL's championship is instead known as a cup (in the CFL's case, the

Grey Cup The Grey Cup (french: Coupe Grey) is both the championship game of the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the trophy awarded to the victorious team playing in the namesake championship of professional Canadian football. The game is contested be ...

).

Bowl games today

Post-season bowls

At the NCAA top level of football, the Division I

Football Bowl Subdivision The NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), formerly known as Division I-A, is the highest level of college football in the United States. The FBS consists of the largest schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). A ...

(FBS, previously known as Division I-A from 1978 through 2005), teams must earn the right to be

bowl eligible Bowl eligibility in college football at the NCAA Division I FBS level is the standard through which teams become available for selection to participate in postseason bowl games. When a team achieves this state, it is described as "bowl-eligible". ...

, generally by winning at least six games and by not having a losing record at the end of their regular season schedule. They can then be invited to a bowl game based on their finishing placement in their conference, and tie-ins that their conference has to various bowl games. Alternately, a bowl-eligible team may receive an at-large invitation to a bowl game, independent of conference tie-ins. Bowls are popular among coaching staffs because the NCAA allows college teams going to bowl games extra weeks of practice they would otherwise not have, and bowl games pay the teams for their participation. Teams belonging to a conference split the money with their conference mates. For the 2010 season, 70 of the 120 Division I FBS teams played in a bowl game. An association of the bowl games themselves, independent of the NCAA, has existed since at least 1989. Originally known as the Football Bowl Association, the organization announced a rebranding as "Bowl Season" in October 2020. It aims to work "with all existing bowls to promote the benefits of the entire bowl system". NCAA bowl season generally lasts from mid-December to early January with the first week of bowl games usually featuring teams from the Group of Five conferences (American Athletic Conference, Conference-USA, Mid-American Conference, Mountain West Conference, Sun Belt Conference and FBS Independents with the exception of Notre Dame) with bowl games featuring mainly teams from the Power Five conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC and FBS Independent Notre Dame) coming in the second week.

Non-FBS bowl games

At lower levels, teams play in playoff tournaments with a national championship game at a neutral site, making invitational bowl games less popular than in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) features only one bowl game, the

Celebration Bowl The Celebration Bowl is a postseason college football bowl game, first played in the 2015 season, contested between the champions of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) and the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC)—the two prominent c ...

(formerly the

Heritage Bowl The Heritage Bowl was a NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) bowl game held by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The bowl pitted a team from the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) against a team from the South ...

). It invites the top teams from

historically black colleges and universities Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of primarily serving the African-American community. Mo ...

, one from the SWAC and one from the MEAC. (The SWAC has historically had a longer regular season that extends past Thanksgiving weekend, preventing its teams from participating in the FCS tournament and more closely mirroring the FBS.) At the Division II level there are currently four post-season bowls for teams that did not qualify for the DII playoffs: the

Mineral Water Bowl The Mineral Water Bowl is an annual American NCAA Division II college football bowl game between teams from the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference and an at large opponent hosted in Excelsior Springs, Missouri at Tiger Stadium. History ...

, Live United Texarkana Bowl, Corsicana Bowl and the

C.H.A.M.P.S. Heart of Texas Bowl The C.H.A.M.P.S. Heart of Texas Bowl (known as the HOT Bowl for short) is the name for two annual American football bowl games played in Central Texas. The first and older of the two HOT Bowls, which has been played since 2001, features two comm ...

(the last of which is a name used by two separate bowls, one for Division II and one for junior colleges). All four of the Division II bowls are played on the same day, the first Saturday of December. At the Division III level, all bowls that are currently played are recent developments (starting in 2008 or later). For the 2017 season, 10 bowls are scheduled to be played by teams that did not qualify for the DIII playoffs: a six-bowl series organized for ECAC teams, a two-bowl series organized between the

Centennial Conference The Centennial Conference is an athletic conference which competes in the NCAA's Division III. Member teams are located in Maryland and Pennsylvania. Eleven private colleges compose the Centennial Conference. Five of ten members of the Centen ...

and

MAC Mac or MAC most commonly refers to: * Mac (computer), a family of personal computers made by Apple Inc. * Mackintosh, a raincoat made of rubberized cloth * A variant of the word macaroni, mostly used in the name of the dish mac and cheese * Mac, ...

, the New York State Bowl (between

Liberty League The Liberty League is an intercollegiate athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division III. Member schools are top institutions that are all located in the state of New York. History It was founde ...

and

Empire 8 The Empire 8 (E8) is an intercollegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division III. The E8 sponsors intercollegiate athletic competition in men's baseball, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's cross country, women's ...

), and the New England Bowl (between the ECFC, MSCAC, CCC and NEWMAC). Prior to 2008, the ECAC also held the ECAC Bowl (1989–2003) for Division I-AA and the North Atlantic Bowl (2007), the last of which is now integrated into the conference's six-bowl series. Additionally, the Division III championship game has historically been known as the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl. Outside the NCAA, the Victory Bowl is sponsored by the NCCAA, a group that does not restrict its membership to either NCAA or NAIA. The NAIA does not have any invitational postseason bowl games. Starting with the now defunct Wheat Bowl, the NAIA found it easier to schedule bowl games early in the season rather than late—this allowed the schedule to accommodate large college bowl games and high school sports; one such extant example is the College Fanz First Down Classic, a pre-season bowl game for NAIA teams.

All-star bowl games

Following traditional bowl games, a series of all-star bowl games round out the post-season schedule. These games seek to showcase the best departing college players, just as the

NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the maj ...

showcases its all-stars in the annual post-season

Pro Bowl The National Football League All-Star Game (1939–1942), Pro Bowl (1951–2022), or Pro Bowl Games (starting in 2023) is an annual event held by the National Football League (NFL) featuring the league's star players. The format has changed thro ...

. Such college all-star games include the East–West Shrine Bowl, the

Senior Bowl The Senior Bowl is a post-season college football all-star game played annually in late January or early February in Mobile, Alabama, which showcases the best NFL Draft prospects of those players who have completed their college eligibility. P ...

, the

Hula Bowl The Hula Bowl is a post-season college football all-star game held annually, usually in January. From inception through the 2021 playing, it was held in Hawaii; since the 2022 edition, it has been played in Orlando, Florida. The game was first st ...

, and the

NFLPA Collegiate Bowl The NFLPA Collegiate Bowl is a post-season college football all-star game for NFL draft-eligible college players, held annually in January. The event was founded in 2012 by the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA). Players predom ...

.

Special games and rivalries

There have also been pre-season and regular-season games carrying the "bowl" moniker, including the Mirage Bowl and the

Glasnost Bowl The Glasnost Bowl was a planned attempt to stage an American college football game in Moscow, USSR at the beginning of the 1989 season. The game was named after the policy of glasnost ("openness") introduced by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in ...

. Examples of bowl games that are not part of the post-season include the

Iron Bowl The Alabama–Auburn football rivalry, better known as the Iron Bowl, is an American college football rivalry game between the Auburn University Tigers and University of Alabama Crimson Tide, both charter members of the Southeastern Confer ...

and the

Egg Bowl The Egg Bowl (traditionally named the “Battle for the Golden Egg”) is the name given to the Mississippi State–Ole Miss football rivalry. It is an American college football rivalry game played annually between Southeastern Conference memb ...

. Recently, the term "bowl" has been added to other games that have some special note or sub-plot to the actual game, in college or the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...

. An example of this is the Bowden Bowl given to games where

Florida State Florida State University (FSU) is a public university, public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher e ...

and Clemson were coached by the father-son duo of

Bobby Bowden Robert Cleckler Bowden (; November 8, 1929 – August 8, 2021) was an American college football coach. Bowden coached the Florida State Seminoles of Florida State University (FSU) from 1976 to 2009 and is considered one of the greatest colleg ...

, and

Tommy Bowden Tommy Pearce Bowden (; born July 10, 1954) is a former American football coach. He served as the head coach at Clemson University from 1999 until October 13, 2008. He is a son of Bobby Bowden, former head football coach of Florida State Univers ...

respectively. Any games between two very poor teams and/or of a very poor standard of play have been jokingly referred to as a Toilet Bowl.Austin Murphy
Washington-Washington State playing for pride in Apple Cup
SI.com, November 20, 2008, Accessed January 9, 2009.

Outside North America

Brazil

The championship game of the

Superliga Nacional de Futebol Americano The Superliga Nacional de Futebol Americano (National American Football League, previously ''Liga Brasileira de Futebol Americano'', Brazilian American Football League) is an American football American football (referred to simply as foot ...

is known as the Brasil Bowl.

European Football League

In the

European Football League The European Football League (EFL) established in 1986, was a tournament for the best European American football teams affiliated to IFAF (International Federation of American Football - Europe), which replaced the European Federation of Americ ...

(EFL), a

European Cup The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

style tournament for European American Football teams affiliated to EFAF (European Federation of American Football), the final game of the EFL is called the

Eurobowl The Eurobowl was the championship final game of a tournament style playoff to determine the champion of all of the American football leagues in Europe. The tournament featured the top or champion clubs from each countries top league that was cal ...

, and has been held annually since 1986.

Denmark

In

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , established ...

, the national championship game is called Mermaid Bowl, named after the

Hans Christian Andersen Hans Christian Andersen ( , ; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales. Andersen's fairy tales, consist ...

fairy tale.

Finland

In

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Both ...

, the national championship game is called Vaahteramalja ("Maple Bowl") and was first held in 1980.

Germany

In Germany, the national championship game in American football is called the

German Bowl The German Bowl is the annual national championship game in the sport of American football in Germany. It is contested by the two best teams of the German Football League. The New Yorker Lions, from Braunschweig, are the record winners of the G ...

and was first held in 1979. Apart from the German Bowl, a Junior Bowl has also been contested in Germany since 1982 and a Ladies Bowl was introduced in 1990. Other, related, national championship games in Germany include the German Flag Bowl (est. 2000), German Junior Flag Bowl (1999) and a German Indoor Flag Bowl (2000).Bowls
GFL website, accessed: 26 January 2011

Great Britain

The annual championship game of the

British American Football Association The British American Football Association (BAFA) is the national governing body for the sport of American football and non-contact Flag Football in the United Kingdom since 1985. It is affiliated to the International Federation of American Foo ...

National Leagues is known as the

Britbowl The Britbowl is the championship game of the British American Football National League, and formerly the British American Football League (BAFL) in the United Kingdom. It is the most prestigious of the league's three bowl games that constitute ...

.

Ireland

The championship game of the

American Football Ireland American Football Ireland (AFI) is the National Governing Body for American football for Ireland and Northern Ireland. Founded in 1984 the AFI is entirely volunteer run and all American football played in Ireland is played at an amateur level. ...

Premier Division is called the Shamrock Bowl. It is generally held around July or August each year and has been played every year since 1986 except for 2000 & 2020.

Israel

The winner of the Israeli Football League is determined every year in the Israel Bowl. The first to lift the Becker Trophy was the Jerusalem Lions in 2008.

Japan

The championship game between the East Japan and West Japan champions in college football, is known as the

Koshien Bowl The Koshien Bowl (甲子園ボウル) is the annual Japanese American college football national championship game, usually played in December at Koshien Stadium. From the 1949 season until 2008 season, the game was held as the final game of Japan ...

. The top middle school teams also compete in the Koshien Bowl. While the pro football championship is known as the

Japan X Bowl The Japan X Bowl (previously the Japan Super Bowl) was the annual championship game of the X-League, the highest level of professional American football in Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country ...

. The winners of the Koshien and Japan X bowls play each other for the Japan National Championship in the

Rice Bowl The breadbasket of a country or of a region is an area which, because of the richness of the soil and/or advantageous climate, produces large quantities of wheat or other grain. Rice bowl is a similar term used to refer to Southeast Asia; and C ...

. The annual high school football championship game is the Christmas Bowl.

Netherlands

The championship game of the Dutch AFBN First (or Premier) Division is called the Tulip Bowl. The first edition was held in 1986.

Switzerland

The championship game of the Swiss Nationalliga A is called the Swiss Bowl. It was first held in 1986.

References

Citations

Sources

*

External links

Bowl Season
(formerly, the Football Bowl Association) {{College football American football bowls **

History

Attempts to determine a national champion

Professional bowl games

Bowl games today

Post-season bowls

Non-FBS bowl games

All-star bowl games

Special games and rivalries

Outside North America

Brazil

European Football League

Denmark

Finland

Germany

Great Britain

Ireland

Israel

Japan

Netherlands

Switzerland

See also

References

Citations

Sources

Further reading

External links