Sugar Bowl

Sugar Bowl
Allstate Sugar Bowl
Allstate Sugar Bowl logo
Stadium	Mercedes-Benz Superdome
Location	New Orleans, Louisiana
Previous stadiums	Tulane Stadium (1934–1974) Georgia Dome[lower-alpha 1] (2006)
Previous locations	Atlanta, Georgia[lower-alpha 1] (2006)
Operated	1935–present
Conference tie-ins	SEC (unofficial 1935–1975, official 1976–present) Big 12 (2015–present)
Payout	US$17,000,000 per team (As of 2014)[1]
Sponsors
USF&G Financial Services (1988–1995) Nokia (1996–2006) Allstate Insurance (2007–present)
Former names
Sugar Bowl (1935–1987) USF&G Sugar Bowl (1988–1995) Nokia Sugar Bowl (1996–2006)
2017 season matchup
Clemson vs. Alabama (Alabama 24-6)
2018 season matchup
Teams TBD (January 1, 2019)

The Sugar Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in New Orleans, Louisiana. It has been played annually since January 1, 1935, and celebrated its 75th anniversary on January 2, 2009. The Sugar Bowl, along with the Orange Bowl and Sun Bowl, are the second-oldest bowl games in the country, behind the Rose Bowl Game.^[2]

The Sugar Bowl was originally played at Tulane Stadium before moving to the Superdome in 1975. When the Superdome and the rest of the city suffered damaged due the Hurricane Katrina in 2006, the Sugar Bowl was temporarily moved to the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. Since 2007, the game has been sponsored by Allstate and officially known as the Allstate Sugar Bowl. Previous sponsors include Nokia (1996–2006) and USF&G Financial Services (1988–1995).

The Sugar Bowl has had a longstanding — albeit not exclusive — relationship with the Southeastern Conference (SEC) (which once had a member institution based in New Orleans, Tulane University; another Louisiana school, Louisiana State University (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 was often the runner-up of the Big 8 or 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 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, Orange, Cotton, Peach, and Fiesta bowls, is one of the "New Years Six" bowls in rotation for the College Football Playoff. It hosted a playoff semifinal following the 2014 season, and will next host one following the 2020 season. In other years, it will feature the best available teams from SEC and the Big 12 Conferences,^[3] an arrangement nearly identical with the relationship between the Rose Bowl and the champions of the Big Ten and Pac-12.

As a member of the Bowl Championship Series, the Sugar Bowl hosted the BCS National Championship Game twice (2000 and 2004). However, from the 2006 season to the 2013 season, the BCS National Championship Game had been a stand-alone event, following one week after the New Year's Day bowl games. This means that, under the now-defunct BCS format, no traditional bowl game hosted the BCS National Championship Game, but that game was played at the venue of one of those traditional major bowls, rotating amongst the four sites, including the Superdome.

The payout for the 2006 game was $14–17 million per participating team. According to Sports Illustrated, the 2007 salary for Sugar Bowl CEO Paul Hoolahan was $607,500.^[4]

Sugar Bowl in Tulane Stadium in the 1940s

History

In 1890, Pasadena, California held its first Tournament of Roses Parade 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 [fruit]. Let's hold a festival to tell the world about our paradise." In 1902, the annual festival was enhanced by adding a football game.^[5]

2004 Sugar Bowl, Louisiana State University vs. Oklahoma; January 4, 2004

In 1926, leaders in Miami, Florida 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."^[6]

In New Orleans, Louisiana, 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. Every year thereafter, Digby repeated calls for action, and even came up with the name "Sugar Bowl" for his proposed football game.^[7]

By 1935, enough support had been garnered for the first Sugar Bowl. The game was played in Tulane Stadium, which had been built in 1926 on Tulane University's campus (before 1871, Tulane's campus was Paul Foucher'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.

Much controversy preceded the 1956 Sugar Bowl, when Pitt Panthers who were playing with Bobby Grier, an African-American, met the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. There had been controversy over whether Grier should be allowed to play due to his race, and whether Georgia Tech should even play at all due to Georgia's Governor Marvin Griffin's opposition to racial integration.^[8][9][10]

In November 1967, Army's success on the field made them a strong candidate to be selected for the 1968 Sugar Bowl. However, Pentagon officials, in the midst of the Vietnam War, 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."^[11]

Superdome for the 2005 Sugar Bowl

Tulane Stadium hosted the game from 1935 through 1974. It has been played in the Louisiana Superdome since 1975. The Sugar Bowl's corporate title sponsor was USF&G Financial Services from 1987 to 1995 and Nokia cellular telephones of Finland from 1995 to 2006. In March 2006 Allstate Insurance was announced as the new title sponsor. ABC Sports televised the game from 1969 through 2006. Fox Sports televised the game from 2007 to 2009 as part of its contract with the BCS. ESPN started airing the game with the 2010–11 season, after outbidding Fox for the broadcasting rights.^[12]

The 2006 Sugar Bowl game was played at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia because of the extensive damage the Superdome suffered as a result of Hurricane Katrina. The Sugar Bowl has since returned to the refurbished Superdome.

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, 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 at the end of the 1992 season. When the Bowl Coalition became the Bowl Alliance 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.^[13] 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 to 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, designating it the permanent home of its archive.

2011 Sugar Bowl winner Ohio State vacated its Sugar Bowl victory over Arkansas in response to National Collegiate Athletic Association allegations over a memorabilia-for-cash scandal.^[14]

The 2012 game, pitting the Michigan Wolverines against the Virginia Tech Hokies, 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 and LSU, played in the National Championship Game, and under BCS rules only two teams per conference were eligible for BCS bowls.

In May 2012, the Big 12 and SEC announced plans to create a new bowl game, the Champions Bowl, that would play host to the champions of those two conferences.^[15] However, by November 2012, it was decided instead that the Sugar Bowl will play host to the champions of the Big 12 and SEC, beginning in January 2015.^[3] If one of those teams takes part in the national semifinal, a team from the same conference will take their place. Also, it will become one of the bowls that will rotate as a spot for a national semifinal game. On January 1, 2015, the Sugar Bowl matched Big 10 champion, Ohio State against SEC champion Alabama in one of two semi-final games for the college football playoff championship in its inaugural year.

Game results

Italics denote a tie game

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, in honor of Fred J. Digby, the first general manager and fellow founding member of the Bowl.^[17]

^† Terrelle Pryor (QB, Ohio State) was ruled ineligible afterwards and his entire record was vacated from the 2010 season.

Appearances by team

Mississippi State, South Carolina and Vanderbilt are the only current SEC members to have never appeared in the Sugar Bowl. Former members Georgia Tech and Tulane also appeared in the Sugar Bowl while in the SEC, though former member Sewanee did not. Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State and Texas Tech are the only current or former Big 8 or Big 12 members to have never appeared in the Sugar Bowl. Texas Tech, Houston and SMU are the only former Southwest Conference members to have never played in the Sugar Bowl

Record by conference

The PCC or Pac-12 has never appeared in the Sugar Bowl.

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. Prior to that, NBC aired the game for several years. From 2006 to 2010, Fox broadcast the game, while ESPN picked up the Sugar Bowl after picking up the rest of the BCS beginning in the 2009–10 season.^[12] For 2013, ESPN Deportes introduced a Spanish language telecast of the game.^[18]

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 following the discontinuation of the BCS as well.^[19]

See also

• List of college bowl games
• Manning Award

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sugar Bowl.

• Official website