The Little Caesars Pizza Bowl (known as the Motor City Bowl until 2009) was a post-season

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

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 Subdivis ...

that was played annually from 1997 to 2013. The first five games (1997–2001) were played at the Pontiac Silverdome in

Pontiac, Michigan Pontiac ( ') is a city in and the county seat of Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 61,606. A northern suburb of Metro Detroit, Pontiac is about northwest of Detroit. Founde ...

, and moved to the 65,000-seat

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), as well as the annual Quick Lane Bowl college football bowl game, state champ ...

in downtown

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

in 2002—the past and present homes of 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) North Division. The team play their home games at Ford ...

respectively. The game marked the first bowl game held in the Detroit area since the Cherry Bowl in 1984–85. The Little Caesars Pizza Bowl featured a bowl-eligible team from the

Mid-American Conference The Mid-American Conference (MAC) is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I collegiate athletic conference with a membership base in the Great Lakes region that stretches from Western New York to Illinois. Nine of the twel ...

(usually the winner of the MAC Championship Game, although that team was not required to accept the bid; prior to the formation of the bowl the MAC champion earned an automatic bid to the Las Vegas Bowl) playing a bowl-eligible team from the

Big Ten Conference 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 ...

. If the Big Ten did not have an eligible team, the game featured a team from the

Sun Belt Conference The Sun Belt Conference (SBC) is a collegiate athletic conference that has been affiliated with the NCAA's Division I since 1976. Originally a non-football conference, the Sun Belt began sponsoring football in 2001. Its football teams participa ...

that met the NCAA requirement of at least six wins. In the event that the Sun Belt did not have an available team, an at-large team could be chosen. The final Little Caesars Pizza Bowl was held in 2013; it was displaced by the Quick Lane Bowl, which is organized by the

and also features Big Ten and MAC opponents (though the

ACC ACC most often refers to: * Atlantic Coast Conference, an NCAA Division I collegiate athletic conference located in the US *American College of Cardiology, A US-based nonprofit medical association that bestows credentials upon cardiovascular spec ...

served as the Big Ten's opponent through

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

). Organizers explored the possibility of moving the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl to nearby Comerica Park as an outdoor game, but the game would instead be cancelled.

History

The Motor City Bowl started in 1997 at the Pontiac Silverdome. The game was jointly sponsored by the "Big Three" automakers in Detroit from 1998 to 2007 ( Ford,

General Motors The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...

and

Chrysler Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automoti ...

). Starting with the 2008 game, Chrysler was replaced by the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights as a presenting sponsor. In 2009,

Little Caesars Little Caesar Enterprises Inc. (doing business as Little Caesars) is an American multi-national pizza chain. Based on 2020 statistics, Little Caesars is the third-largest pizza chain by total sales in the United States, behind Pizza Hut and Do ...

became the title sponsor of the game after General Motors and Chrysler reorganized under bankruptcy protection. Ford remained as a sponsor. In 2011, the three automakers, along with the

UAW The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, better known as the United Auto Workers (UAW), is an American Labor unions in the United States, labor union that represents workers in the Un ...

, began contributing $100,000 jointly to become presenting sponsors of the game. A bowl record crowd of 60,624 fans witnessed the 2007 bowl game between the

Purdue Boilermakers The Purdue Boilermakers are the official intercollegiate athletics teams representing Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana. As is common with athletic nicknames, the Boilermakers nickname is also used as colloquial designation ...

and the Central Michigan Chippewas. On April 12, 2010, it was announced that the Big Ten Conference had extended its affiliation with the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl (Big Ten no. 8) through the 2013 season. Also the Sun Belt Conference agreed to a secondary tie-in that would allow a Sun Belt Conference team to play in the Detroit-based game should the Big Ten Conference not have an available bowl-eligible team to play. In August 2013, the

announced that it would hold a new bowl game at Ford Field beginning in 2014, between the Big Ten and an

Atlantic Coast Conference The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic conference located in the eastern United States. Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC's fifteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Associa ...

(ACC) opponent. While Pizza Bowl organizers attempted to move the bowl to Comerica Park (which is owned by Little Caesars' parent company Ilitch Holdings) and convert it to an outdoor game, these plans never came to fruition. In August 2014, the Lions announced that the new game would be known as the Quick Lane Bowl, and that it would be held on the same day—December 26—that the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl was traditionally held on. In a statement to '' Crain's Detroit Business'', Motor City Bowl executive director Ken Hoffman confirmed that "there is no Pizza Bowl for 2014. We will have to see about the future", implying that the game has been cancelled indefinitely in favor of the Quick Lane Bowl. The MAC holds a secondary tie-in for the Quick Lane Bowl.

Game results

MVPs

Appearances by team

There were 17 playings of the bowl (34 total appearances). ;Teams with multiple appearances ;Teams with a single appearance Won:

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classifie ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

Florida Atlantic Florida Atlantic University (Florida Atlantic or FAU) is a public research university with its main campus in Boca Raton, Florida, and satellite campuses in Dania Beach, Davie, Fort Lauderdale, Jupiter, and Fort Pierce. FAU belongs to the 12-cam ...

FIU Florida International University (FIU) is a public research university with its main campus in Miami-Dade County. Founded in 1965, the school opened its doors to students in 1972. FIU has grown to become the third-largest university in Florida ...

, Memphis,

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

Loss: Akron,

BYU Brigham Young University (BYU, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university in Provo, Utah. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day S ...

, Louisville,

Middle Tennessee Middle Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of the U.S. state of Tennessee that composes roughly the central portion of the state. It is delineated according to state law as 41 of the state's 95 counties. Middle Tennessee contains the s ...

, Northwestern,

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

Western Kentucky Western Kentucky is the western portion of the U.S. state of Kentucky. It generally includes part or all of several more widely recognized regions of the state. ;Always included * The Jackson Purchase, the state's westernmost generally recogniz ...

, Western Michigan

Appearances by conference

References

External links

* {{Bowl game navbox Defunct college football bowls Sports in Pontiac, Michigan Recurring sporting events established in 1997 1997 establishments in Michigan Recurring sporting events disestablished in 2013 2013 disestablishments in Michigan American football in Michigan