The Aloha Bowl was a

college football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

bowl game In North America, a bowl game, or simply bowl, is one of a number of postseason college football games primarily played by NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) teams. For most of its history, the FBS did not use a playoff tourname ...

played in

Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, located in the Pacific Ocean. It is the county seat of the Consolidated city-county, consolidated City and County of Honol ...

, at

Aloha Stadium Aloha Stadium is a closed multi-purpose stadium in Halawa, Hawaii, a census-designated place that is a western suburb of Honolulu. It is the largest stadium in the state of Hawaii. , the stadium ceased fan-attended operations indefinitely, and ...

. Certified by the

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

(NCAA), the game featured teams from Division I-A (later known as the

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). As ...

History

The Aloha Bowl was established in 1982 by Mackay Yanagisawa, a sportsman from

Oahu Oahu (, , sometimes written Oahu) is the third-largest and most populated island of the Hawaiian Islands and of the U.S. state of Hawaii. The state capital, Honolulu, is on Oahu's southeast coast. The island of Oahu and the uninhabited Northwe ...

. With the exception of the 1983–1986 playings, the Aloha Bowl was traditionally played on Christmas morning in Honolulu. For most of its playings, the game was sponsored by

Jeep Jeep is an American automobile brand, now owned by multi-national corporation Stellantis. Jeep has been part of Chrysler since 1987, when Chrysler acquired the Jeep brand, along with other assets, from its previous owner, American Motors Co ...

Corporation. The bowl originally applied for certification by the NCAA Division I Championship Committee in 1981, but certification was delayed until 1982. The inaugural game was played in 1982 and the last game was played in 2000, after it lost its sponsorship as a result of a corporate merger between Jeep and

DaimlerChrysler Mercedes-Benz Group AG (formerly Daimler-Benz, DaimlerChrysler, and Daimler) is a German multinational automotive company headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is one of the world's leading car manufacturers. Daimler-B ...

. In 1998 and 1999, the Aloha Bowl was part of a doubleheader followed by the Oahu Bowl; the 1998 event was the first televised doubleheader in American college football history. After Jeep dropped its sponsorship, the bowl committees of the Hawaiian bowl games elected to move the games to the U.S. mainland. The Oahu Bowl moved to

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

and was played as the Seattle Bowl for two years. The Aloha Bowl was to move to

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, but before the move could be completed the game lost its bowl certification. San Francisco later received a bowl game, first played in December 2002 as the San Francisco Bowl, which later operated under several other names. Hawaii did not remain without a bowl for long, however, as a new bowl committee received certification in 2002 for a Christmastime game, the

Hawaii Bowl The Hawaii Bowl is a college football bowl game that has been played in the Honolulu, Hawaii, area since 2002. The game was originally held at Aloha Stadium in Halawa, Hawaii, a suburb of Honolulu, before moving to the Clarence T. C. Ching At ...

, at Aloha Stadium. The Aloha Bowl was preceded years earlier by the Poi Bowl (late 1930s) and Pineapple Bowl (1940s and early 1950s).

Game results

Appearances by team

Appearances by conference

*Note: Table based on conference affiliation at the time the game was played and may not represent current conference alignment.

Television

Most editions of the Aloha Bowl were televised by ABC (1986–2000).

References