The GameAbove Sports Bowl is a post-season

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 ...

certified by the

NCAA 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. ...

that began play in the 2014 season. The game was previously known as the Quick Lane Bowl with

Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational corporation, multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. T ...

serving as

title sponsor Naming rights are a financial transaction and form of advertising or memorialization where a corporation, person, or other entity purchases the right to name a facility, object, location, program, or event (most often sports venues), typical ...

of the game for 10 years, through its auto shop brand

Quick Lane Quick Lane Tire and Auto Center is a global automotive chain that provides oil changes, tire rotation, multi-point inspections and other express services. Currently headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, Quick Lane is owned by Ford Motor Company, the ...

. That sponsorship ended in June 2024. In October 2024, strategic investment company GameAbove, through its GameAbove Sports brand, was announced as the game's new title sponsor. Backed by the

Detroit Lions The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit. The Lions compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. The team plays their home game ...

of the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...

, the game features a bowl-eligible team from the

Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference, among others) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Fa ...

competing against an opponent from the

Mid-American Conference The Mid-American Conference (MAC) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference with a membership base in the Great Lakes region (North America), Great Lakes region that stretches from Western New York to Illinois. Its members co ...

(MAC). The bowl is played at

Ford Field Ford Field is a domed American football stadium located in Downtown Detroit. It primarily serves as the home of the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL), the Michigan Panthers of the United Football League (UFL), the Mid-Americ ...

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

and was created as a ''de facto'' replacement for the

Little Caesars Pizza Bowl The Little Caesars Pizza Bowl (known as the Motor City Bowl until 2009) was a post-season college football bowl game that was played annually from 1997 to 2013. The first five games (1997–2001) were played at the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, M ...

(last played in 2013), and inherited its traditional December 26 scheduling. Unlike its predecessor, which featured the eighth-place team in the Big Ten against the MAC champion, competing teams are selected by conference representatives and are not based on final rankings.

History

Since 2002, Detroit's

had played host to the

Motor City Bowl The Little Caesars Pizza Bowl (known as the Motor City Bowl until 2009) was a post-season college football bowl game that was played annually from 1997 to 2013. The first five games (1997–2001) were played at the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, M ...

—later known as the

Little Caesars Little Caesar Enterprises Inc. (doing business as Little Caesars) is an American multinational chain of Pizzeria, pizza restaurants that was formed in 1959. Little Caesars is the fourth largest pizza chain by total sales in the United States b ...

Pizza Bowl for sponsorship reasons; a bowl game between the 8th placed team in the

and the champion of the

(MAC), which was first played in 1997 at the

Pontiac Silverdome The Pontiac Silverdome (also known as the Silverdome) was a stadium in Pontiac, Michigan. It opened in 1975 and sat on 199 acres (51 ha) of land. When the stadium opened, it featured a fiberglass fabric roof held up by air pressure, the fi ...

. In May 2013,

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 ...

reported that the

were planning to organize a new Big Ten bowl game at Ford Field against an

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 ...

(ACC) opponent—Big Ten commissioner

Jim Delany James Edward Delany (born 1948) is the former commissioner of the Big Ten Conference, a role in which he had served from 1989 until 2020. He is regarded among college athletics as having been influential in the creation of the Bowl Championship S ...

had expressed a desire to revamp the conference's lineup of bowl games for the 2014 season to keep them "fresh". In August 2013, the Lions officially confirmed the new, then-unnamed game, tentatively scheduled for December 30, 2014. The team had reached six-year deals with the Big Ten and ACC to provide tie-ins for the game; the teams playing in the bowl are to be picked by representatives from each participating conference. Ford-Field-September-10-2006

The announcement of the Lions' bowl game, and the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl's loss of Ford Field as a venue, left the fate of the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl—which had a relatively lower-profile matchup—in jeopardy. Detroit Lions president Tom Lewand remarked that "very few" markets could adequately support hosting two major bowl games. Organizers were open to the possibility of moving the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl across the street to

Comerica Park Comerica Park is a baseball stadium located in Downtown Detroit. It has been the ballpark of Major League Baseball's Detroit Tigers since 2000, when the team left Tiger Stadium (Detroit), Tiger Stadium. History Construction Founded in 1894, t ...

, home stadium of the

Detroit Tigers The Detroit Tigers are an American professional baseball team based in Detroit. The Tigers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League Central, Central Division. One of the AL's eight chart ...

, for 2014 as an outdoor game. Comerica Park, the Tigers, and game sponsor Little Caesars are all owned by

Ilitch Holdings Ilitch Holdings, Inc. is an American holding company established in 1999 to provide all companies owned by Mike and Marian Ilitch with professional and technical services. Its privately held businesses include Little Caesars Pizza, the Nation ...

. However, these plans never came to fruition. In August 2014, the Lions announced that the

had acquired title sponsorship rights to the new Detroit bowl, making it the Quick Lane Bowl—named for its auto shop brand,

. It was also confirmed that the inaugural edition of the bowl would inherit the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl's traditional date of December 26, and be televised by

. In a statement to ''

Crain's Detroit Business Crain Communications Inc. is an American publishing conglomerate based in Detroit, Michigan, United States, with 13 foreign subsidiaries. History Gustavus Dedman "G.D." Crain Jr. ( Gustavus Demetrious Crain Jr.; 1885–1973), previously the ci ...

'', Motor City Bowl co-founder Ken Hoffman confirmed that "there is no Pizza Bowl for 2014. We will have to see about the future", implying that the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl had been cancelled indefinitely; the December 2013 playing proved to be the final edition of the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl. On October 21, 2014, bowl organizers announced a secondary tie-in with the MAC. The inaugural edition of the bowl was played on December 26, 2014, between the

Rutgers Scarlet Knights The Rutgers Scarlet Knights are the athletic teams that represent Rutgers University's New Brunswick campus. In sports, Rutgers is famously known for being the "Birthplace of College Football", hosting the first ever intercollegiate football ...

of the Big Ten and

North Carolina Tar Heels The North Carolina Tar Heels (also Carolina Tar Heels) are the college sports in the United States, intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The name Tar Heel is a nickname used to refer to ...

of the ACC. In the midst of the

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 ...

, the 2020 edition of the bowl was not played; although a specific reason was not given by organizers. In June 2024, Quick Lane sponsorship ended. For several months, the organizers used "Detroit Bowl" as a working title. On October 8, 2024, strategic investment company GameAbove, through its GameAbove Sports brand, was announced as the game's new title sponsor, making it the GameAbove Sports Bowl. The 2024 edition of the bowl took six

overtime Overtime is the amount of time someone works beyond normal working hours. The term is also used for the pay received for this time. Normal hours may be determined in several ways: *by custom (what is considered healthy or reasonable by society) ...

periods to decide, setting a new record for the most overtime periods in an FBS bowl game. It broke the prior record of five overtime periods, which had been set just two days prior in the

2024 Hawaii Bowl The 2024 Hawaii Bowl was a college football bowl game played on December 24, 2024, at Clarence T. C. Ching Athletics Complex located in Honolulu, Hawaii. The 21st annual Hawaii Bowl game featured South Florida and San Jose State. The game began ...

Game results

Source:

MVPs

Most appearances

Updated through the December 2024 edition (10 games, 20 total appearances). ;Teams with multiple appearances ;Teams with a single appearance Won (6):

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 ...

Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of Royal family, royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and above sovereign princes. As royalty or nobi ...

New Mexico State New Mexico State University (NMSU or NM State) is a Public university system, public, Land-grant university, land-grant, research university in Las Cruces, New Mexico, United States. Founded in 1888, it is the state's oldest public institution ...

Rutgers Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College and was aff ...

, Toledo,

Western Michigan West Michigan and Western Michigan are terms for a region in the U.S. state of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. Generally, it refers to the Grand Rapids- Muskegon-Holland area, and more broadly to most of the region along the Lower Peninsula's Lake ...

Lost (7):

Central Michigan Central Michigan, also called Mid Michigan, is a region in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, Lower Peninsula of the United States, U.S. state of Michigan. As its name implies, it is the middle area of the Lower Peninsula. Lower Michigan is said t ...

Eastern Michigan Eastern Michigan University (EMU, EMich, Eastern Michigan or simply Eastern) is a public research university in Ypsilanti, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1849 as the Michigan State Normal School, it was the fourth normal school (teachers' ...

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, GT, and simply Tech or the Institute) is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Established in 1885, it has the lar ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

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 ...

Northern Illinois Northern Illinois is a region generally covering the northern third of the U.S. state of Illinois. The region is by far the most populous of Illinois, with nearly 9.7 million residents as of 2010. Economics Northern Illinois is dominated by ...

Appearances by conference

Updated through the December 2024 edition (10 games, 20 total appearances). * Independent appearances: New Mexico State (2022)

Game records

Media coverage

The bowl has been televised by

ESPN2 ESPN2 is an American multinational pay television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between the Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which owns the remaining 20%). ESPN2 was initially ...

since its inception.

References

External links

* {{Bowl game navbox 2014 establishments in Michigan American football competitions in Detroit Annual sporting events in the United States College football bowls Recurring sporting events established in 2014