Bowl game
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In North America, a bowl game, or simply bowl, is one of a number of postseason college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). For most of its history, the Division I Bowl Subdivision had avoided using a playoff tournament to determine an annual national champion, which was instead traditionally determined by a vote of sports writers and other non-players. In place of such a playoff, various cities across the United States developed their own regional festivals featuring postseason college football games. Prior to 2002, bowl game statistics were not included in players' career totals. Despite attempts to establish a permanent system to determine the FBS national champion on the field (such as the Bowl Coalition from 1992 to 1994, the Bowl Alliance from 1995 to 1997, the Bowl Championship Series from 1998 to 2013, and the College Football Playoff from 2014 to the present), various bowl games continue to be held because of the vested economic interests entrenched in them.
Bowl games originally featured the very best teams in college football, with strict bowl eligibility requirements for teams to receive an invitation to a bowl game in a particular year; as of 1971, there were only 10 team-competitive (as compared to all-star) bowl games. The number of bowl games has grown, reaching 20 games by the 1997 season, then rapidly expanding beyond 30 games by the 2006 season and 40 team-competitive games, not including the College Football Playoff National Championship, by the 2015 season. The increase in bowl games has necessitated a virtual elimination of the NCAA bowl eligibility rules, since reduced to allow teams with non-winning 6–6 records (numerous teams since 2002 season, including 21 such teams in the suddenly 43-bowl 2023 season) and even losing 5–6 and 5–7 seasons (numerous teams since the 2001 season, including one such team in the 43-bowl 2023 season, meaning over one quarter of the teams that bowl season did not have winning records) to fill many of the increasingly available bowl slots.
The term "bowl" originated from the
are references to college football bowl games.The use of the term has crossed over into professional and collegiate Canadian football. A notable example is the annual Banjo Bowl between the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Saskatchewan Roughriders 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 national championship game; since 2002 these have been the Uteck Bowl and the Mitchell Bowl. 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
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, Louisiana, Florida, and Texas 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.[1] 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.
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 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.[2][3][4]
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 since the NCAA vacated FSU's 2006 Emerald Bowl victory over UCLA due to an academic issue.[5]
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
The attendance of 106,869 for the 1973 Rose Bowl set the Rose Bowl Stadium record, and an NCAA bowl game attendance record.[6][7] 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 selling
Prior to 1992 most bowls had strict agreements with certain conferences. For example, the Rose Bowl traditionally invited the champions of the Pac-10 and the Big Ten 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
In 1995, the Bowl 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, undefeated Michigan was ranked first in both major polls, but as the Big Ten champion, they played eighth-ranked Pac-10 champion Washington State in the Rose Bowl. The top Bowl Alliance team, #2 and unbeaten Nebraska, faced one-loss, third-ranked Tennessee 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) by 25. The AP kept Michigan as the champion, but the Coaches' Poll jumped Nebraska, playing its final game for retiring coach Tom 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 the
For the 2014–15 season, the BCS was replaced by a new consortium, the College Football Playoff (CFP). The new system uses a four-team single-elimination tournament, with its participants selected and seeded by a committee; the semi-final games are rotated between pairs of the six member bowls yearly, the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl, then Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl Classic, and then the Fiesta Bowl and Peach Bowl. The winners from the two semi-final bowls advance to the College Football Playoff National Championship, which is played at a neutral site determined using bids. Members of the New Year's Six 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
When the professional football
As a result, other professional football leagues used or use the name Bowl for their championships, such as the
Bowl games today
Postseason bowls
At the
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.[10] Originally known as the Football Bowl Association, the organization announced a rebranding as "Bowl Season" in October 2020.[11] It aims to work "with all existing bowls to promote the benefits of the entire bowl system".[11]
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, formerly the Heritage Bowl. It invites the top teams from historically black colleges and universities, 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 postseason bowls for teams that did not qualify for the DII playoffs: the Live United Texarkana Bowl, Heritage Bowl, America's Crossroads Bowl, and Florida Beach Bowl. All four of the Division II bowls are played on the first weekend of December.
At the
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
All-star bowl games
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 the East–West Shrine Bowl, the Senior Bowl, and the Hula Bowl. Other all-star games, now defunct, include the North–South Shrine Game, and NFLPA Collegiate Bowl.
Special games and rivalries
There have also been pre-season and regular-season games carrying the "bowl" moniker, including the
.Examples of bowl games that are not part of the postseason include the Iron Bowl and the Egg 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 the
Games between two very poor teams and/or of a very poor standard of play have been jokingly referred to as the "Toilet Bowl".[12]
Outside North America
Brazil
The championship game of the Superliga Nacional de Futebol Americano is known as the Brasil Bowl.
European Football League
In the European Football League (EFL), a European Cup style tournament for European American Football teams affiliated with IFAF Europe, the final game of the EFL is called the Eurobowl, and has been held annually since 1986.
Denmark
In
Finland
In Finland, 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 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).[13]
Great Britain
The annual championship game of the British American Football Association National Leagues is known as the Britbowl.
Ireland
The championship game of the American Football Ireland 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
Japan
The championship game between the East Japan and West Japan champions in college football, is known as the Koshien Bowl. The top middle school teams also compete in the Koshien Bowl. While the pro football championship is known as the Japan X Bowl. The winners of the Koshien and Japan X bowls play each other for the Japan National Championship in the Rice Bowl. The annual high school football championship game is the Christmas Bowl.
Netherlands
The championship game of the Dutch AFBN First 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.
See also
- List of college bowl games
- List of announcers of major college bowl games
- Bids to college bowl games
- Bowl Coalition
- Bowl Alliance
- Bowl Championship Series
- List of NCAA football bowl records
- AP Poll- Bowl game results were not included in the AP championship until the 1968 season (1974 season for the UPI championship)
References
Citations
- ^ Deford, Frank (November 29, 2006). "The earmarks of athletics: Sheer lunacy of bowl games defies all traditional logic". Sports Illustrated. Archived from the original on December 5, 2006.
- ^ Virginia Tech 39, Pittsburgh 36. Quote: "Virginia Tech won at Pittsburgh for the first time since 1999, clinching a 24th consecutive bowl berth – the longest active streak in the nation."
- ^ Brief, Sam. "Virginia Tech Tops the List of Longest Bowl Streaks After Beating Marshall". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved 9 December 2019.
- ^ Martinez, Courtney. "7 of the longest active winning and postseason streaks across the NCAA". NCAA.com. NCAA. Retrieved 9 December 2019.
- ^ "VT continues to claim nation's longest bowl streak over Florida State". Tallahassee Democrat. Retrieved November 30, 2016.
- ^ 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 Archived April 8, 2008, at the Wayback Machine page 494 (PDF)
- ^ "Tuna Bowl II Goes From Folly to Foley". The Los Angeles Times. October 20, 1997.
- ^ "'Manning Bowl', MNF twin bill highlight schedule peek - NFL - ESPN". Sports.espn.go.com. 2006-03-28. Retrieved 2013-12-17.
- ^ Pope, Edwin (April 30, 1989). "Arrogant CFA threatens bowls with playoffs". Miami Herald. p. 6D. Retrieved October 24, 2020.
- ^ a b "'Bowl Season' Announced as New Name of College Football's Postseason". bowlseason.com (Press release). October 23, 2020. Retrieved October 24, 2020.
- ^ Austin Murphy, Washington–Washington State playing for pride in Apple Cup, SI.com, November 20, 2008, Accessed January 9, 2009.
- ^ Bowls Archived 2015-09-29 at the Wayback Machine GFL website, accessed: 26 January 2011
Sources
- "College Bowl Games". HickokSports.com. Archived from the original on February 23, 2002. Retrieved September 20, 2005.
Further reading
- Oriard, Michael (2009). Bowled Over: Big-Time College Football from the Sixties to the BCS Era. The University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-3329-2.
External links
- Bowl Season (formerly, the Football Bowl Association)