Gotham Bowl

The Gotham Bowl was a post-season college football bowl game that was played in New York City, United States, in 1961 and 1962. The game was initially created as a fund raising attempt for the March of Dimes.

The game was not a success financially: the two games that were played both lost money as few fans were willing to sit through the cold December New York weather. Plus, as it was essentially a charity game, it had little financial capital on which it could survive.

In what was supposed to be the game's inaugural year, the bowl hoped to invite Syracuse, but no invitation was extended when Syracuse announced immediately after its season ended that it would not accept any post-season offers. An Army-Air Force matchup fell through, so the bowl extended an offer to Oregon State. Holy Cross and Colorado turned down invitations after bowl officials mishandled the invitation process, leaving Oregon State with no opponent, forcing the bowl to postpone for another year.

The following year, the Gotham Bowl managed to find two teams to play, Baylor and Utah State, for the game at the Polo Grounds. Baylor won, 24-9, in front of a sparse crowd of 15,123. (It would be the next-to-last college football game played at the Polo Grounds; Army would defeat Syracuse, 9-2, in front of 29,500 on September 29, 1962.)

The 1962 edition of the Gotham Bowl, played in Yankee Stadium, was particularly tormented with poor planning and bad luck. The Miami Hurricanes were invited, but no opponent could be found. Finally, on December 4, 1962, just eleven days before the game, the Gotham Bowl invited Nebraska, which had just finished an 8-2 season. However, the day before the contest, the pilot of the Cornhuskers' team plane refused to leave the Lincoln airport until the bowl's check for expenditures cleared, which it did. (Miami made a similar demand and received their $30,000 expense check up front.)

...
Wikipedia