The Sugar Bowl is an annual American
college football bowl game
In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season 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 Subdivi ...
played in
. Played annually since January 1, 1935, it is tied with the
Orange Bowl
The Orange Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in the Miami metropolitan area. It has been played annually since January 1, 1935, making it, along with the Sugar Bowl and the Sun Bowl, the second-oldest bowl game ...
and
Sun Bowl as the second-oldest bowl games in the country, surpassed only by the
Rose Bowl Game.
The Sugar Bowl was originally played at
Tulane Stadium
Tulane Stadium was an outdoor football stadium that stood in New Orleans from 1926 to 1980. It was officially the Third Tulane Stadium and replaced the "Second Tulane Stadium", which was located where the Telephone Exchange Building is now. Th ...
before moving to the
Superdome in 1975. When the Superdome and the rest of the city suffered damage due to both the winds from and the flooding in the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Sugar Bowl was temporarily moved to the
Georgia Dome
The Georgia Dome was a domed stadium in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta between downtown to the east and Vine City to the west, it was owned and operated by the State of Georgia as part of the Georgia World Congress Center ...
in
Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
in 2006. Since 2007, the game has been sponsored by
Allstate and officially known as the Allstate Sugar Bowl. Previous sponsors include
Nokia
Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finland, i ...
(1996–2006) and
USF&G
USF&G was an American insurance company that existed from 1896 until 1998. It was originally called the United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company. The insurer formed a holding company for its insurance businesses and changed its name to USF&G i ...
Financial Services (1988–1995).
The Sugar Bowl has had a longstanding—albeit not exclusive—relationship with the
Southeastern Conference
The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities o ...
(SEC) (which once had a member institution based in New Orleans,
Tulane University
Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into a comprehensive pub ...
; another Louisiana school,
Louisiana State University
Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 nea ...
(LSU) in Baton Rouge, is still in the SEC today). Indeed, the Sugar Bowl did ''not'' feature an SEC team only four times in its first 60 editions, and an SEC team played in the game in every year but one from 1950 to 1995. The SEC's opponent varied from year to year, but prior to the advent of the
Bowl Championship Series, it was often the runner-up of the
Big Eight,
SWC, or a major independent.
The Sugar Bowl-SEC relationship has been altered over the past twenty years due to
conference realignments and the emergence of a series of
coalitions
A coalition is a group formed when two or more people or groups temporarily work together to achieve a common goal. The term is most frequently used to denote a formation of power in political or economical spaces.
Formation
According to ''A Gui ...
and
alliances intending to produce an
undisputed national champion in college football, but the ties between the Sugar Bowl and the SEC have persisted and have recently been strengthened. Since 2015, the Sugar Bowl, along with the
Rose
A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...
,
Orange
Orange most often refers to:
*Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis''
** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower
*Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum
* ...
,
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...
,
Peach
The peach (''Prunus persica'') is a deciduous tree first domesticated and cultivated in Zhejiang province of Eastern China. It bears edible juicy fruits with various characteristics, most called peaches and others (the glossy-skinned, non-f ...
, and
Fiesta bowls, is one of the "
New Year's Six
The New Year's Six, sometimes abbreviated as NY6, is an unofficial but commonly used term used to describe the following NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) bowl games: the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Peach Bowl ...
" bowls in rotation for the
College Football Playoff
The College Football Playoff (CFP) is an annual postseason knockout invitational tournament to determine a national champion for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the highest level ...
. It hosted a playoff semifinal following the 2014, 2017, and 2020 seasons, and will next host one following the 2023 season. In other years, it will feature the best available teams from SEC and the
Big 12
The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its f ...
conferences,
an arrangement nearly identical with the relationship between the
Rose Bowl and the champions of the
Big Ten
The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...
and
Pac-12.
As a member of the Bowl Championship Series, the Sugar Bowl hosted the
BCS National Championship Game
The BCS National Championship Game, or BCS National Championship, was a postseason college football bowl game, used to determine a national champion of the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), first played in the 1998 college fo ...
twice, in
2000
File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...
and
2004, as the national championship rotated between the bowls themselves until 2006 when the national
championship
In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion.
Championship systems
Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship.
Title match system
In this system ...
game became a
standalone Standalone or Stand-alone may refer to:
*Stand-alone DSL, a digital subscriber line without analog telephone service; also known as ''naked DSL''
*Stand-alone expansion pack, an expansion pack which does not require the original game in order to us ...
event. Since the 2014 season, the Sugar Bowl has been in the rotation of bowls—commonly referred to as the
New Year's Six
The New Year's Six, sometimes abbreviated as NY6, is an unofficial but commonly used term used to describe the following NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) bowl games: the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Peach Bowl ...
—that host
College Football Playoff
The College Football Playoff (CFP) is an annual postseason knockout invitational tournament to determine a national champion for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the highest level ...
(CFP) semifinal games once every three years.
History
In 1890,
Pasadena, California, held its first
Tournament of Roses Parade
A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:
# One or more competitions held at a single venue and concentr ...
to showcase the city's mild weather compared to the harsh winters in northern cities. As one of the organizers said: "In
New York, people are buried in snow. Here, our flowers are blooming and our oranges are about to bear
ruit Let's hold a festival to tell the world about our paradise." In
1902
Events
January
* January 1
** The Nurses Registration Act 1901 comes into effect in New Zealand, making it the first country in the world to require state registration of nurses. On January 10, Ellen Dougherty becomes the world' ...
, the annual festival was enhanced by adding a
football game.
In 1926, leaders in
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...
,
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
, decided to do the same with a "Fiesta of the American Tropics" that was centered around a New Year's Day football game. Although a second "Fiesta" was never held, Miami leaders later revived the idea with the "Palm Festival" (with the slogan "Have a Green Christmas in Miami"). The football game and associated festivities of the Palm Festival were soon named the "
Orange Bowl
The Orange Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in the Miami metropolitan area. It has been played annually since January 1, 1935, making it, along with the Sugar Bowl and the Sun Bowl, the second-oldest bowl game ...
."
In
,
Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
, the idea of a New Year's Day football game was first presented in 1927 by Colonel
James M. Thomson, publisher of the ''
New Orleans Item'', and Sports Editor
Fred Digby
Frederick (Fred) Joseph Digby (January 26, 1893 – November 3, 1958), was a sportswriter based in New Orleans. He was the founding member and first general manager of the Sugar Bowl
The Sugar Bowl is an annual American college football bowl ...
. Every year thereafter, Digby repeated calls for action, and even came up with the name "Sugar Bowl" for his proposed football game.
By 1935, enough support had been garnered for the first Sugar Bowl. The game was played in
Tulane Stadium
Tulane Stadium was an outdoor football stadium that stood in New Orleans from 1926 to 1980. It was officially the Third Tulane Stadium and replaced the "Second Tulane Stadium", which was located where the Telephone Exchange Building is now. Th ...
, which had been built in 1926 on Tulane University's campus (before 1871, Tulane's campus was
Paul Foucher
Paul-Henri Foucher (21 April 1810 – 24 January 1875) was a French playwright, theatre and music critic, political journalist, and novelist.
Biography
Early career
Foucher was born in Paris and began his career as an employee in the offices of ...
's plantation, where Foucher's father-in-law,
Etienne de Bore, had first granulated sugar from
cane syrup). Warren V. Miller, the first president of the New Orleans Mid-Winter Sports Association, guided the Sugar Bowl through its difficult formative years of 1934 and 1935. An unusual 2–0 score marked the
1942 Sugar Bowl, in which the sole scoring play was a safety.
In January 1956,
Bobby Grier became the first black player to participate in the Sugar Bowl. He is also regarded as the first black player to compete at a bowl game in the
Deep South, though others such as
Wallace Triplett had played in games like the 1948 Cotton Bowl in Dallas. Grier's team, the Pittsburgh Panthers, was set to play against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.
However, Georgia's Governor
Marvin Griffin
Samuel Marvin Griffin, Sr. (September 4, 1907 – June 13, 1982) was an American politician from the U.S. state of Georgia.
A lifelong Democrat, Griffin was a native of Bainbridge, Georgia and publisher of the ''Bainbridge Post-Searchligh ...
beseeched Georgia Tech to not participate in this racially integrated game.
[Mulé, Marty ]
A Time For Change: Bobby Grier And The 1956 Sugar Bowl
. Black Athlete Sports Network, December 28, 2005 Griffin was widely criticized by news media leading up to the game, and protests were held at his mansion by Georgia Tech students. Despite the governor's objections, Georgia Tech's president
Blake R. Van Leer
Blake Ragsdale Van Leer (August 16, 1893 – January 23, 1956) was an engineer and university professor who served as the fifth president of Georgia Institute of Technology from 1944 until his death in 1956.
Early life and education
Van Leer was ...
upheld the contract after he threatened to resign and the board of regents voted in his favor to compete in the bowl. In the game's first quarter, a pass interference call against Grier ultimately resulted in Yellow Jackets' 7-0 victory. Grier stated that he has mostly positive memories about the experience, including the support from teammates and letters from all over the world.
In November
1967
Events
January
* January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair.
* January 5
** Spain and Romania sign an agreement in Paris, establishing full consular and ...
,
Army
An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...
's success on the field (then at 7–1) made them a strong candidate to be selected for the
1968
The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide.
Events January–February
* January 5 – " Prague Spring": Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.
* Janu ...
game. However, Pentagon officials, in the midst of the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...
, refused to allow the team to play what would have been the academy's first bowl game ever—citing the "heavy demands on the players' time" as well as an emphasis on football being "not consistent with the academy's basic mission: to produce career Army officers."
Tulane Stadium hosted through December
1974, and it has since been at the
Superdome (except
2006). For the
1972
Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using mean solar tim ...
season, the game was moved to New Year's Eve night;
which lasted for four editions, returning to New Year's Day in January
1977
Events January
* January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group.
* January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democrat ...
. The last time it was played on natural grass was in January
1971.
Compared to most bowl games, the Sugar Bowl has had steady
naming rights
Naming rights are a financial transaction and form of advertising or memorialization whereby a corporation, person, or other entity purchases the right to name a facility, object, location, program, or event, typically for a defined period of t ...
sponsorship. Its first corporate title sponsor was
USF&G
USF&G was an American insurance company that existed from 1896 until 1998. It was originally called the United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company. The insurer formed a holding company for its insurance businesses and changed its name to USF&G i ...
Financial Services from 1987 to 1995, then
Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
mobile phone
A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whi ...
manufacturer
Nokia
Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finland, i ...
from 1995 to 2006. In March 2006,
Allstate Insurance
The Allstate Corporation is an American insurance company, headquartered in Northfield Township, Illinois, near Northbrook since 1967. Founded in 1931 as part of Sears, Roebuck and Co., it was spun off in 1993 but still partially owned by S ...
was announced as the new title sponsor, and has continued to sponsor the game since.
ABC Sports
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Televisi ...
televised the game from 1969 through 2006.
Fox Sports
Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world.
The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the F ...
televised the game from 2007 to 2010 as part of its contract with the BCS.
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...
started airing the game with the 2010–11 season, after outbidding Fox for the broadcasting rights.
The
2006 game was relocated to the
Georgia Dome
The Georgia Dome was a domed stadium in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta between downtown to the east and Vine City to the west, it was owned and operated by the State of Georgia as part of the Georgia World Congress Center ...
in
Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
,
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
, because of the extensive damage the Superdome suffered as a result of
Hurricane Katrina. Big East Champion West Virginia would go on to beat SEC Champion Georgia in the game 38-35. It returned to the refurbished Superdome in
2007. The payout for the 2006 game was $14–17 million per participating team. According to ''
Sports Illustrated
''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twi ...
'', the 2007 salary for Sugar Bowl CEO Paul Hoolahan was $607,500.
Prior to the
BCS, the game traditionally hosted the
Southeastern Conference (SEC) champion against a top-tier at-large opponent. This was formalized in 1975, when the SEC champion was granted an automatic bid to the Sugar Bowl starting with the end of the 1976 season. This continued throughout the time of the
Bowl Coalition
The College Football Bowl Coalition was formed through an agreement among Division I-A college football bowl games and conferences for the purpose of forcing a national championship game between the top two teams and to provide quality bowl game ...
, a precursor to the BCS. However, the Sugar Bowl agreed to release the SEC champion if necessary to force a national championship game. Under this format, the Sugar Bowl hosted the first Bowl Coalition national championship game, when SEC champion Alabama upended
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...
at the end of the 1992 season. When the Bowl Coalition became the
Bowl Alliance
The Bowl Alliance was an agreement among college football bowl games (specifically the Sugar, Orange, and Fiesta Bowls) for the purpose of trying to match the top two teams in a national championship game and to provide quality bowl game match ...
at the start of the 1995 season, the Sugar Bowl would still release the SEC champion to go to the national championship game if they were ranked in the top two in the nation.
Under the now-defunct BCS format, the Sugar Bowl continued to host the SEC champion against a top-tier at-large opponent, unless the SEC champion went to the
BCS National Championship Game
The BCS National Championship Game, or BCS National Championship, was a postseason college football bowl game, used to determine a national champion of the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), first played in the 1998 college fo ...
. When this happened, the Sugar Bowl usually selected the highest-ranked SEC team still available in the BCS pool. The SEC champion played for the national championship in every one of the eight final editions of the BCS (2006–2013).
The Sugar Bowl maintains an archive of past programs, images, newsreels, and other materials. The archive, originally housed in the Superdome, survived Hurricane Katrina, but a more secure home was needed. During the summer of 2007, the Sugar Bowl donated its materials to
The Historic New Orleans Collection
The Historic New Orleans Collection (THNOC) is a museum, research center, and publisher dedicated to the study and preservation of the history and culture of New Orleans and the Gulf South region of the United States. It is located in New Orleans ...
, designating it the permanent home of its archive.
Ohio State
The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best public ...
vacated its
2011 Sugar Bowl
The 2011 Allstate Sugar Bowl was an American college football bowl game that was part of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) for the 2010 NCAA Division I FBS football season and was the 77th Sugar Bowl. The contest took place on January 4, 2011 ...
victory over
Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...
in response to
NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
allegations over a memorabilia-for-cash scandal.
The
2012
File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gat ...
game, pitting the
Michigan Wolverines against the
Virginia Tech Hokies
The Virginia Tech Hokies are the athletic teams representing the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) in intercollegiate athletics. The Hokies participate in the NCAA's Division I Atlantic Coast Conference in 22 v ...
, was the first Sugar Bowl since 2000—and only the sixth since World War II—without an SEC team. Both of the SEC's BCS participants,
Alabama
(We dare defend our rights)
, anthem = "Alabama"
, image_map = Alabama in United States.svg
, seat = Montgomery
, LargestCity = Huntsville
, LargestCounty = Baldwin County
, LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham
, area_total_km2 = 135,765 ...
and
LSU
Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 near ...
, played in the
National Championship Game (in the Superdome), and under BCS rules only two teams per conference were eligible for BCS bowls.
In May 2012, the
Big 12
The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its f ...
and SEC announced plans to create a new bowl game, the "Champions Bowl," that would play host to the champions of those two conferences. That November, it was officially announced that the Champions Bowl had been awarded to New Orleans under a 12-year contract beginning in 2015, and would retain the Sugar Bowl name (stating that "Champions Bowl" was only a working title). In addition, it was announced that the Sugar Bowl would host one of two national semi-final games every three seasons (in the 2015, 2018, 2021, and 2024 seasons) as part of the new
College Football Playoff
The College Football Playoff (CFP) is an annual postseason knockout invitational tournament to determine a national champion for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the highest level ...
system replacing the BCS.
The game for the 2022 season was moved to December 31, 2022 with a noon ET kickoff; out of respect to the
NFL, no bowl games are played on January 1 if it falls on a Sunday, while broadcaster ESPN is also committed to airing ''
Monday Night Football
''ESPN Monday Night Football'' (abbreviated as ''MNF'' and also known as ''ESPN Monday Night Football on ABC'' for simulcasts) is an American live television broadcast of weekly National Football League (NFL) games currently airing on ESPN, A ...
.'' It will be only the sixth edition of the game to be played on New Year's Eve.
Game results
Rankings are based on the
AP Poll
The Associated Press poll (AP poll) provides weekly rankings of the top 25 NCAA teams in one of three Division I college sports: football, men's basketball and women's basketball. The rankings are compiled by polling 62 sportswriters and broad ...
prior to the game being played. ''Italics denote a tie game''
Source:
Future games
denotes game is a College Football Playoff semifinal
Most Outstanding Players (Miller-Digby Award)
The Miller-Digby Award is presented to the Most Outstanding Player (MOP) in the Sugar Bowl, as voted by sports journalists covering the game. The award was initially established in 1948 following the death of Warren V. Miller, the first president of the Bowl; it was renamed the Miller-Digby Memorial Trophy in 1959, to also honor
Fred J. Digby, the first general manager and fellow founding member of the Bowl. When the Sugar Bowl acts as a CFP semifinal, both an offensive and defensive MVP are named; this has been the case in 2015, 2018, and 2021.
Terrelle Pryor was later ruled ineligible and his statistics for the 2010 season, including the 2011 Sugar Bowl, were vacated.
Most appearances
Updated through the January 2022 edition (88 games, 176 total appearances).
;Teams with multiple appearances
;Teams with a single appearance
Won (8):
Boston College,
Duke
Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are rank ...
,
Fordham,
Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...
,
Louisville
Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border.
...
,
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
,
Navy
A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It in ...
,
Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...
Lost (10):
Air Force
An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an ...
,
Carnegie Tech
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...
,
Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...
,
Hawai'i
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only ...
,
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...
,
Rice
Rice is the seed of the grass species '' Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). The name wild rice is usually used for species of the genera '' Zizania'' and '' Porteresia'', both wild and domesticat ...
,
Saint Mary's (CA),
Temple
A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...
,
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
,
Wyoming
Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the s ...
;Conference participation
*
Mississippi State
Mississippi State University for Agriculture and Applied Science, commonly known as Mississippi State University (MSU), is a public land-grant research university adjacent to Starkville, Mississippi. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Univer ...
,
South Carolina
)'' Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no)
, anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind"
, Former = Province of South Carolina
, seat = Columbia
, LargestCity = Charleston
, LargestMetro = ...
and
Vanderbilt are the only current SEC members that have not appeared in the Sugar Bowl. Former members
Georgia Tech
The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...
and
Tulane
Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into a comprehensive pub ...
also appeared in the Sugar Bowl while in the SEC, although former member
Sewanee did not.
*
Iowa State,
Kansas
Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to th ...
,
Kansas State
Kansas State University (KSU, Kansas State, or K-State) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Manhattan, Kansas, United States. It was opened as the state's land-grant college in 1863 and was the first public instit ...
and
Texas Tech
Texas Tech University (Texas Tech, Tech, or TTU) is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas. Established on , and called Texas Technological College until 1969, it is the main institution of the five-institution Texas Tech University Sys ...
are the only current or former Big Eight or Big 12 members that have not appeared in the Sugar Bowl.
* Texas Tech,
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...
and
SMU are the only former Southwest Conference members that have not played in the Sugar Bowl.
Appearances by conference
Updated through the January 2022 edition (88 games, 176 total appearances).
* Records are based on a team's conference affiliation at the time the game was played.
* Conferences that are defunct or not currently active in FBS are marked in ''italics''.
* The
American Athletic Conference
The American Athletic Conference (The American or AAC) is an American collegiate athletic conference, featuring 11 member universities and five affiliate member universities that compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) ...
(The American) retains the charter of the original Big East, following its
2013 realignment.
* No team from the
Pac-12 or its predecessors (e.g.
PCC
PCC may refer to:
Science and technology
* Pearson correlation coefficient (''r''), in statistics
* Periodic counter-current chromatography, a type of affinity chromatography
* Portable C Compiler, an early compiler for the C programming language
...
) has appeared in the Sugar Bowl.
Game records
Source:
Broadcasting
In recent years, television broadcast rights to the Sugar Bowl have been part of the BCS contract. From 1999–2006, the game aired on ABC as part of its BCS package, where it had also been televised from 1969 through 1998. The Sugar Bowl was the only Bowl Alliance game to stick with ABC following the 1995, 1996 and 1997 seasons; the Fiesta and Orange Bowls were televised by
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
. Prior to that,
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
aired the game for several years. From 2006 to 2010,
Fox
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelve sp ...
broadcast the game, while
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...
picked up the Sugar Bowl after picking up the rest of the BCS beginning in the 2009–10 season.
For 2013,
ESPN Deportes
ESPN Deportes (, ''ESPN Sports'') is an American multinational Spanish-language pay television sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communications ...
introduced a
Spanish language
Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a global language with more than 500 million native speakers, mainly in th ...
telecast of the game.
In November 2012, ESPN announced that it had reached a deal to maintain broadcast rights to the Sugar Bowl through 2026. ESPN pays $55 million yearly to broadcast the game beginning in the 2014–15 season under the new contract, which took effect upon the establishment of the College Football Playoff. ESPN made a similar deal to maintain broadcast rights to the
Orange Bowl
The Orange Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in the Miami metropolitan area. It has been played annually since January 1, 1935, making it, along with the Sugar Bowl and the Sun Bowl, the second-oldest bowl game ...
following the discontinuation of the BCS as well.
See also
*
List of college bowl games
The following is a list of current, defunct, and proposed college football bowl games. Three bowl games are currently part of the College Football Playoff, a selection system that creates bowl matchups involving four of the top-ranked teams in t ...
*
Manning Award
The Manning Award has been presented annually since the 2004 football season to the collegiate American football quarterback as judged by the Sugar Bowl Committee to be the best in the United States. It is the only quarterback award that incl ...
References
External links
*
{{New Year
Annual sporting events in the United States
Caesars Superdome
Allstate
New Year's Day