List of college bowl games
Name First Game Venue ( Permanent Seating ) City Most Recent Per Team Payout ( + Revenue Pool ) Title Sponsor Previous Name ( s )
Rose Bowl Game 1902 ( annual since 1916 ) Rose Bowl ( 92,542 ) Pasadena , California * $ 4,000,000 Northwestern Mutual Tournament East-West football game ; Rose Bowl , Rose Bowl Game presented by : AT & T ^ , Sony PlayStation 2 ^ , Citi ^ , Vizio
Orange Bowl 1935 Hard Rock Stadium ( 64,767 ) Miami Gardens , Florida $ 6,000,000 ( as semifinal ) Capital One Orange Bowl , FedEx Orange Bowl , Discover Orange Bowl
Sugar Bowl 1935 Mercedes-Benz Superdome ( 73,208 ) New Orleans , Louisiana † $ 4,000,000 Allstate Sugar Bowl , USF & G Sugar Bowl , Nokia Sugar Bowl
Cotton Bowl Classic 1937 AT & T Stadium ( 80,000 ) Arlington , Texas $ 6,000,000 ( as semifinal ) Goodyear Cotton Bowl , Mobil Cotton Bowl , Cotton Bowl , Southwestern Bell Cotton Bowl Classic , SBC Cotton Bowl Classic
Peach Bowl 1968 Mercedes-Benz Stadium ( 71,000 ) Atlanta , Georgia $ 4,000,000 Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl , Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl , Chick-fil-A Bowl
Fiesta Bowl 1971 State Farm Stadium ( 63,400 ) Glendale , Arizona $ 4,000,000 PlayStation Fiesta Bowl , Sunkist Fiesta Bowl , Fiesta Bowl , IBM OS/2 Fiesta Bowl , Tostitos Fiesta Bowl , Vizio Fiesta Bowl , BattleFrog Fiesta Bowl
College Football Playoff games
Further information : College Football Playoff Six major bowl games , known as the New Year 's Six , rotate the hosting of the two semifinal games which determine the teams that play in the final College Football Playoff National Championship game . [ 3 ] The New Year 's Six includes six of the ten oldest bowl games ( missing the Sun , Gator , Citrus and Liberty bowls ) , continuing their original history of pitting the very best teams in the country against each other . These six games focus on the top 12 teams in the rankings , with only five teams ranked lower than 12th ( all five were still ranked in the top 20 ) having ever played in the New Year 's Six since the College Football Playoff system was inaugurated .
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 the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision. There are also a number of other college football postseason invitationals, as well as several all-star games. For nearly a century, bowl games were the purview of only the very best teams, but a steady proliferation of new bowl games required more teams, with 70 participating teams by the 2010-11 bowl season, then 80 participating teams by the 2015-16 bowl season. As a result, the NCAA has steadily reduced the criteria for bowl eligibility, allowing teams with a non-winning (6-6) record in 2010, further reducing requirements to allow teams with outright losing records (5-7) to be invited since 2012. Of the teams with losing records, the team with the best Academic Progress Rate score would be chosen first. While losing teams in bowl games has now become commonplace, there have been a few losing teams who have played in bowl games before the changes in bowl eligibility: 1945 Gator Bowl - Florida Gators (2-3-3), 1963 Sun Bowl - SMU (4-6), 1970 Tangerine Bowl - William & Mary - (5-6), and the 2001 New Orleans Bowl - North Texas (5-6). For the 2016-17 bowl season, 25% of the bowl participants (20 teams) did not have a winning record. The tables below (College Football Playoff games, Other current Division I FBS bowl games) reflect the changes for the 2019-20 bowl season. Bowl games are not limited to the Bowl Subdivision; teams in the three lower divisions of the NCAA (the championship subdivision, and Divisions II and III) are also allowed to participate in bowl games. The playoff structure in those three divisions discourages most high-caliber teams from participating in bowl games, as teams would rather contest for the national championship than play in a bowl game. The same basic guidelines for bowl eligibility apply for those contests.