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InNorth America, abowl game, or simplybowl, is one of a number of postseasoncollege football games primarily played byNCAADivision I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) teams. For most of its history, the FBS did not use aplayoff tournament to determine an annual national champion, instead relying on a vote by sportswriters or coaches. In place of such a playoff, cities developed regional festivals featuring bowls. Prior to2002, bowl game statistics were not included in players' career totals. Despite moves to establish a permanent system to determine theFBS national champion on the field — such as theBowl Coalition from 1992 to 1994, theBowl Alliance from 1995 to 1997, theBowl Championship Series (BCS) from 1998 to 2013, and theCollege Football Playoff (CFP) from 2014 through the present — some bowls are still held.
Historically, the four "major" bowl games, originally played onNew Year's Day, were theRose Bowl,Orange Bowl,Sugar Bowl, andCotton Bowl.[1][2][3][4]
Bowls originally featured the very best teams in college football, with strictbowl eligibility requirements for teams to receive invitations to participate. The number grew from 10 team-competitive (as compared to all-star) bowls in 1971 to 43 in2023. Now the NCAA allows teams with 6–6 records and, since the2001 season, sometimes even losing 5–6 and 5–7 seasons to participate to fill the slots. More than a quarter of 2023 bowl teams did not have winning records.
The term "bowl" originated from theRose Bowl stadium, site of the first postseason college football games. The Rose Bowl Stadium, in turn, takes its name andbowl-shaped design from theYale Bowl, the prototype of many football stadiums in theUnited States. The term has since become almost synonymous with any majorAmerican football event, generally college football, with some significant exceptions. Out of the dozens of modern bowls, two examples are theEgg Bowl, the annual game between theMississippi StateBulldogs and theOle MissRebels, and theIron Bowl, the annual game between theAlabamaCrimson Tide and theAuburnTigers. Inprofessional football, theNational Football League (NFL) holds theSuper Bowl andPro Bowl.
The term has crossed over into bothCanadian football and North American soccer. A notable example is the annualBanjo Bowl between theWinnipeg Blue Bombers andSaskatchewan Roughriders of theCanadian Football League (CFL). InU Sports football, the two national semi-final games are named theMitchell Bowl and theUteck Bowl. Many North American soccer championship matches were titled the 'Soccer Bowl', including theUnited States men's college soccer championship from 1950 to 1952, theNorth American Soccer League championship from 1975 to 1984, and theNorth American Soccer League (II) championship from 2013 to 2017.
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The history of the bowl game began with the1902 Tournament East-West football game, sponsored by theTournament of Roses Association betweenMichigan andStanford, a game which Michigan won 49–0. The Tournament of Roses eventually sponsored an annual contest starting with the1916 Tournament East-West Football Game. With the1923 Rose Bowl it began to be played at the newly completedRose Bowl stadium, and thus the contest itself became known as theRose Bowl Game. The name "bowl" to describe the games thus comes from the Rose Bowl stadium.[citation needed] 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 asSouthern California,Louisiana,Florida, andTexas 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.[5] While modern travel is more convenient, all but 5 of 41 bowl games (as of 2017[update]) are still located incities below approximately 36° N.
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 2018[update], theUniversity of Alabama has played in more bowl games than any other school, with 69 appearances (countingCollege Football Playoff semifinals and finals). Alabama also holds the record for most bowl victories with 41.
Florida State held the record of consecutive bowl berths at 36 bowl appearances from 1982 to 2017. However, it is not recognized by the NCAA since the NCAA vacated FSU's2006 Emerald Bowl victory over UCLA due to an academic issue.[6]
The Rose Bowl was the only major college bowl game in 1930. By 1940, there were five major college bowl games: the Rose Bowl, theSugar Bowl (established in 1935), theCotton Bowl Classic (1937), theOrange Bowl (1935), and theSun Bowl (1935). By 1950, the number had increased to eight games. This slate 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 theNational Champion). Up until around the 1950s, the small number of games were played solely onNew Year's Day, with the only major exception being if the holiday occurred 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 the2016–17 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 the1973 Rose Bowl set theRose Bowl Stadium record, and an NCAA bowl game attendance record.[7][8] The Rose Bowl stadium still is the largest capacity stadium and the Rose Bowl game has the highest attendance for postseason bowl games.
In the 1990s, many bowl games began to modify or abandon their traditional names in favor of sellingnaming rights. While some include the traditional name in some form (e.g. theRose Bowl Game presented byNorthwestern Mutual), others have eliminated their traditional name in favor of solely using their corporate sponsor's name (e.g. the formerCitrus Bowl became theCapital One Bowl for some time after the financial services companyCapital One 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 thePac-10 and theBig Ten conferences. The Sugar Bowl invited the SEC champion and the Orange Bowl hosted theBig 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.
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, theDivision I Bowl Subdivision 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, theBowl Alliance, 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, undefeatedMichigan was ranked first in both major polls, but as the Big Ten champion, they played eighth-ranked Pac-10 championWashington State in the Rose Bowl. The top Bowl Alliance team, #2 and unbeatenNebraska, faced one-loss, third-rankedTennessee in the Orange Bowl. Michigan won by five on New Year's Day and the next night, Nebraska beat Tennessee (playing with an injury-hobbledPeyton Manning) by 25. The AP kept Michigan as the champion, but the Coaches' Poll jumped Nebraska, playing its final game for retiring coachTom Osborne, in part because of their more lopsided victory against a more highly ranked opponent.
The following season, the Rose Bowl, Pac-10, and Big Ten joined the other bowls and major conferences to form theBowl Championship Series. 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, theRose Bowl,Fiesta Bowl,Sugar Bowl, andOrange Bowl, rotating the role of "national championship." In 2006, a dedicatedBCS Championship Game rotated among the BCS venues. The BCS Championship Game, while separate from the four main bowls, was still rotated among their sites. TheCoaches Poll was contractually obligated to recognize the winner of the game as its national champion. However, other polls such as theAP Poll may deviate and pick a different team, particularly in years when multiple teams were equally worthy of reaching the game. In 2003, for instance, one-lossLSU won the BCS National Championship overOklahoma, but the AP crowned one-lossUSC champion after its Rose Bowl win.
For the 2014–15 season, the BCS was replaced by a new consortium, theCollege Football Playoff (CFP). The new system used a four-teamsingle-elimination tournament, with its participants selected and seeded by a committee; the semi-final games were rotated between pairs of the six member bowls yearly, branded as the "New Year's Six": the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl, then Orange Bowl andCotton Bowl Classic, and then the Fiesta Bowl andPeach Bowl. The winners from the two semi-final bowls advanced to theCollege Football Playoff National Championship, played at a neutral site determined using bids. Members of the New Year's Six that were not hosting semi-final games reverted to their traditional tie-ins. The CFP then expanded to a 12-team format for the 2024–25 season, with members of the New Year's Six now either hosting the quarter-finals and semi-finals on a rotating basis. 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.
TheNational Football League also used the name "bowl" for some of its playoff games. While theNFL Championship was not named a Bowl initially, the league instituted thePro Bowl as the name of its all-star game in 1951, and introduced theBert 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 footballAFL–NFL merger occurred in 1970, the AFL–NFL World Championship Game became the NFL's championship and is now known as theSuper Bowl, as it has been named since 1968 (the name was coined byLamar Hunt after watching his daughter play with asuper ball). There has also been theAmerican Bowl, apreseason match held overseas, and various one-time games informally nicknamed bowls, such as theBounty Bowl,Ice Bowl,Snow Bowl,Freezer Bowl,Fog Bowl, Mud Bowl,Tuna Bowl,[9]Manning Bowl,[10]Harbaugh Bowl,Kelce 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 theWorld Football League (World Bowl),NFL Europe (World Bowl),Arena Football League (ArenaBowl),Indoor Football League (United Bowl),Great Lakes Indoor Football League (Great Lakes Bowl) andAmerican Indoor Football Association (AIFA Championship Bowl). TheCanadian Football League nicknames one of their rivalries as theBanjo Bowl and anotherQEW 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, theGrey Cup).
At theNCAA top level of football, theDivision IFootball Bowl Subdivision (FBS, previously known as Division I-A from 1978 through 2005), teams must earn the right to bebowl 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.[11] Originally known as the Football Bowl Association, the organization announced a rebranding as "Bowl Season" in October 2020.[12] It aims to work "with all existing bowls to promote the benefits of the entire bowl system".[12]
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 Four conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and FBS Independent Notre Dame) coming in the second week.
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, theCelebration Bowl, formerly theHeritage Bowl. It invites the top teams fromhistorically black colleges and universities, one from theSWAC and one from theMEAC. 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 theDivision II level there are currently four postseason bowls for teams that did not qualify for the DII playoffs: theLive United Texarkana Bowl,Heritage Bowl,America's Crossroads Bowl, andFlorida Beach Bowl. All four of the Division II bowls are played on the first weekend of December.
At theNCAA Division III level, all bowls that are currently played are recent developments (starting in 2008 or later). For the2017 season, 10 bowls were scheduled to be played by teams that did not qualify for the DIII playoffs: asix-bowl series organized forECAC teams, a two-bowl series organized between theCentennial Conference andMAC, theNew York State Bowl (betweenLiberty League andEmpire 8), and theNew England Bowl (between theECFC,MSCAC,CCC andNEWMAC).
Prior to 2008, the ECAC also held theECAC 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, theDivision III championship game has historically been known as the Amos AlonzoStagg Bowl.
Outside theNCAA, theVictory Bowl is sponsored by theNCCAA, a group that does not restrict its membership to either NCAA orNAIA. The NAIA does not have any invitational postseason bowl games. Starting with the now defunctWheat 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 theCollege Fanz First Down Classic, a pre-season bowl game for NAIA teams.
InCanadian football, theMitchell Bowl andUteck Bowl are held as the semi-final games for Canada'suniversity football national championship. The bowl winners go on to play each other for theVanier Cup. The Mitchell Bowl is always hosted by either theCanada West orOntario conference champion, while the Uteck Bowl is always hosted by either theAtlantic Canada orQuebec conference champion.
Following team-competitive bowl games, a series of all-star bowl games round out the postseason schedule. These games seek to showcase the best departing college players. Such college all-star games include theEast–West Shrine Bowl, theSenior Bowl, and theHula Bowl. Other all-star games, now defunct, include theNorth–South Shrine Game, andNFLPA Collegiate Bowl.
There have also been pre-season and regular-season games carrying the "bowl" moniker, including theMirage Bowl, theGlasnost Bowl and theCanadian Football League'sBanjo Bowl.
Examples of bowl games that are not part of the postseason include theIron Bowl and theEgg Bowl.
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 theNational Football League. An example of this is theBowden Bowl given to games whereFlorida State andClemson were coached by the father-son duo ofBobby Bowden andTommy Bowden, respectively.
Games between two very poor teams and/or of a very poor standard of play have been jokingly referred to as the "Toilet Bowl".[13]
The championship game of theSuperliga Nacional de Futebol Americano is known as the Brasil Bowl.
In theEuropean Football League (EFL), aEuropean Cup style tournament for European American Football teams affiliated withIFAF Europe, the final game of the EFL is called theEurobowl, and has been held annually since 1986.
InDenmark, the national championship game is calledMermaid Bowl, named after theHans Christian Andersen fairy tale.
InFinland, the national championship game is calledVaahteramalja ("Maple Bowl") and was first held in 1980.
InGermany, the national championship game in American football is called theGerman Bowl and was first held in 1979. Apart from the German Bowl, aJunior 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).[14]
The annual championship game of theBritish American Football AssociationNational Leagues is known as theBritbowl.
The championship game of theAmerican Football Ireland Premier Division is called theShamrock Bowl. It is generally held around July or August each year and has been played every year since 1986 except for 2000 & 2020.
The winner of theIsraeli Football League is determined every year in the Israel Bowl. The first to lift the Becker Trophy was the Jerusalem Lions in 2008.
The championship game between the East Japan and West Japan champions in college football, is known as theKoshien Bowl. The top middle school teams also compete in the Koshien Bowl. While the pro football championship is known as theJapan X Bowl. The winners of the Koshien and Japan X bowls play each other for the Japan National Championship in theRice Bowl. The annual high school football championship game is theChristmas Bowl.
The championship game of the Dutch AFBN First Division is called the Tulip Bowl. The first edition was held in 1986.
The championship game of the Swiss Nationalliga A is called theSwiss Bowl. It was first held in 1986.
The four major bowl games (Rose,Orange,Sugar,Cotton)
...all four major bowl games — Orange, Sugar, Cotton, and Rose.
