New St. Petersburg Bowl
(May 1, 2008)

The NCAA yesterday approved Tropicana Field as the site for a new college bowl game this December. The game will be called the St. Petersburg Bowl until a title sponsor is found. With the Outback Bowl in Tampa, this area becomes one of five communities with two bowl games.

The Holiday Bowl

St. Petersburg has played host to a bowl game before, the Holiday Bowl was held there from 1957-60. The last Holiday Bowl served as the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) national title game.

Holiday Bowl Results

Sat Dec 21, 1957 - Pittsburg State 27, Hillsdale 26

Sat Dec 20, 1958 - Northeastern (OK) 19, Northern Arizona 13

Sat Dec 19, 1959 - Texas A&M-Kingsville 45, Arkansas Tech 14

Sat Dec 18, 1960 - Lenoir-Rhyne 15, Humboldt State 14

The exact date has not been set, but it will be held between December 20th and 23rd and actually kick off the bowl season on December 20th. The game will feature representatives from the Big East Conference and Conference USA. While there are rumors that the Texas Bowl may change, right now the Big East has seven bowl tie-ins for eight teams, and St. Petersburg would get the fifth or sixth selection. The bowl would get the fourth or fifth pick from C-USA. There is already talk the game would try to get South Florida or Central Florida, which would help with attendance, but hurt the tourism side of things.

ESPN will own and operate the game, an arrangement the network has with five other bowls. Tropicana Field will hold about 44,000 for football and tickets will cost $30. A title sponsor would contribute $300,000-$500,000 of the operating cost. If the Tampa Bay Rays get their new waterfront stadium, the game could be played there.

The NCAA also added the Congressional Bowl in Washington DC, but rejected the Rocky Mountain Bowl in Salt Lake City. There will 34 bowls games this year for 68 teams. While there were seven bowl eligible teams that did not go to bowls last year, many have talked about the glut of bowl games.

St. Petersburg mayor Rick Baker had his own spin, "Our city joins an elite group of only 28 cities nationwide to host an NCAA collegiate bowl game."