Music City Bowl officials originally wanted to select North Carolina as the ACC representative. This would have set up a contest between two traditional college basketball powers (the Wildcats and Tar Heels are first and second, respectively, in all-time college basketball wins). This plan came undone, however, when the Chick-fil-A, Gator, and Champs Sports Bowls all passed on Clemson, which lost the 2009 ACC Championship Game to Georgia Tech. This forced the Music City Bowl to take Clemson. Under the ACC's bowl selection rules in 2009, the conference title game loser could not fall below the Music City Bowl, which had the fifth pick among bowl-eligible ACC teams. The Tar Heels accepted a bid to the 2009 Meineke Car Care Bowl.

Since 2002, the name of the bowl game has been known as The Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl, being named after its primary sponsor, Gaylord Hotels. The 2010 game marked the first time since then that a new company has taken over as title sponsor of the game, as Franklin American Mortgage will take over. Gaylord Hotels continued to be a major sponsor of the game.

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