The Fenway Bowl is an

NCAA 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). As ...

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 at

Fenway Park Fenway Park is a ballpark located in Boston, Massachusetts, less than one mile from Kenmore Square. Since 1912, it has been the home field of Major League Baseball's (MLB) Boston Red Sox. While the stadium was built in 1912, it was substantia ...

Boston, Massachusetts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

. Organized by

ESPN Events ESPN Events is an American multinational sporting event promoter owned by ESPN Inc. It is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, and shares its operations with SEC Network and formerly with ESPNU. The corporation organizes sporting events ...

and Fenway Sports Management, it features teams from the

American Athletic Conference The American Athletic Conference (AAC), also known as The American, is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States, featuring 13 full member universities and 6 affiliate member universities that compete in t ...

and the

Atlantic Coast Conference The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, the ACC's eighteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athlet ...

. The bowl is one of three active bowl games staged in a

baseball stadium A ballpark, or baseball park, is a type of sports venue where baseball is played. The playing field is divided into two field sections called the infield and the outfield. The infield is an area whose dimensions are rigidly defined in part ba ...

, along with the

Pinstripe Bowl The Pinstripe Bowl is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) college football bowl game held annually since 2010 at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, New York City. Through 2025 it is affiliated ...

(

Yankee Stadium Yankee Stadium is a baseball stadium located in the Bronx in New York City. It is the home field of Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees and New York City FC of Major League Soccer. The stadium opened in April 2009, replacing the Yankee S ...

) and

Rate Bowl The Rate Bowl is an annual college football bowl game that has been played in the state of Arizona since 1989, under several different names. Played as the Copper Bowl from inception through 1996, it was known as the Insight.com Bowl from 1997 ...

(

Chase Field Chase Field, formerly Bank One Ballpark, is a retractable roof, retractable-roof stadium in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. It is the ballpark of Major League Baseball's Arizona Diamondbacks. It opened in 1998 Arizona Diamondbacks season, 1998, the ...

). The Fenway Bowl is one of three bowl games that have never released payout totals for the teams involved in the game ( Myrtle Beach Bowl and the

LA Bowl The LA Bowl is an annual NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) college football bowl game played at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, first played in December 2021. The bowl has tie-ins with the Mountain West Conference, Mountain ...

are the others).

History

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

games at Fenway Park date to 1912, the year the venue opened. Various high school, college, and professional football teams have played at Fenway, including the

Boston Patriots Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and financial center of New England, a region of the Northeastern United States. It has an area of and a ...

during the

American Football League The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, AFL–NFL merger, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Foot ...

(AFL) era, and the

Boston College Eagles The Boston College Eagles are the athletic teams that represent Boston College, located in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. They compete as a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level ( Football Bowl Subdivis ...

. Prior to the Fenway Bowl, no bowl game had been scheduled for the ballpark. Organizers had planned for the inaugural playing of the Fenway Bowl to be during the 2020–21 bowl season. On October 23, 2020, it was reported that the bowl would not debut as planned, citing

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

concerns. Postponement of the bowl was confirmed by organizers the following week, with the temporary

Montgomery Bowl The 2020 Montgomery Bowl was a college football bowl game played on December 23, 2020, at the Cramton Bowl in Montgomery, Alabama. The game was broadcast on ESPN, with kickoff at 7:00 p.m. EST (6:00 p.m. local CST). It was the inaugur ...

being created as a substitute. On May 27, 2021, organizers announced a game date for the 2021–22 bowl season of December 29, 2021. On November 4, 2021, Wasabi Technologies signed on as the title sponsor of the game. However, the game was canceled three days prior to kickoff due to COVID issues within the

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

team; they had been set to face SMU. On December 17, 2022, as part of the 2022–23 bowl season, the Fenway Bowl was played for the first time, featuring

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

and

Louisville Louisville is the most populous city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, sixth-most populous city in the Southeast, and the 27th-most-populous city in the United States. By land area, it is the country's 24th-largest city; however, by populatio ...

. The following year, the first ranked team was invited to the bowl, as SMU (17th in the AP poll and 24th in the

College Football Playoff The College Football Playoff (CFP) is an annual single-elimination tournament, knockout invitational tournament to determine a national champion for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, D ...

rankings) faced

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private university, private Catholic Jesuits, Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1863 by the Society of Jesus, a Catholic Religious order (Catholic), religious order, t ...

Game results

Rankings are based on the AP poll prior to the game being played.

MVPs

Appearances by team

Updated through the December 2024 edition (3 games, 6 total appearances). ;Teams with a single appearance Won (3):

, UConn
Lost (3):

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

, SMU

Appearances by conference

Updated through the December 2024 edition (3 games, 6 total appearances). Independent appearances: UConn (2024)

Game records

Source:

Media coverage

The bowl has been televised by

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

since its inception.

References

External links

* {{Bowl game navbox Fenway Bowl College football bowls Annual sporting events in the United States American football in Boston Sports competitions in Boston Recurring sporting events established in 2022 2022 establishments in Massachusetts