St. Petersburg Bowl | |
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Stadium | Tropicana Field |
Location | St. Petersburg, Florida |
Operated | 2008–present |
Conference tie-ins |
American, ACC, C-USA Alternates: MAC, Sun Belt |
Payout | US$500,000 |
Sponsors | |
Former names | |
magicJack St. Petersburg Bowl (2008)
St. Petersburg Bowl Presented by Beef 'O' Brady's (2009) Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl (2010–2013) Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl (2014) |
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2016 matchup | |
Mississippi State vs. Miami (OH) (Mississippi State 17–16) |
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2017 matchup | |
TBD (December 21, 2017) |
The St. Petersburg Bowl is an NCAA-sanctioned post-season college football bowl game that has been played annually at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, since 2008. It was first known as the magicJack St. Petersburg Bowl, after corporate sponsor magicJack. When Beef O'Brady's became the sponsor in 2009, the official name was changed to the St. Petersburg Bowl Presented by Beef 'O' Brady's and in 2010, the game became known as the Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl. The restaurant stopped sponsoring the bowl in 2014. On June 18, 2014, it was announced that bitcoin payment service provider BitPay would become the new sponsor of the game under a two-year deal, renamed the Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl. Bitcoin, the digital currency, will be accepted for ticket and concession sales at the game as part of the sponsorship, and the sponsorship itself was also paid for using bitcoin. On April 2, 2015, after one year of sponsorship, BitPay declined to renew sponsorship of the game.
The bowl game features teams from the American Athletic Conference against either the Atlantic Coast Conference or Conference USA, unless one of the conferences does not have enough bowl eligible teams, in which case the Mid-American or Sun Belt Conference are eligible to send a team. The 2016 edition of the game featured an SEC team, Mississippi State.