Las Vegas Bowl
| Las Vegas Bowl | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Stadium | Sam Boyd Stadium |
| Location | Whitney, Nevada |
| Operated | 1992–present |
| Conference tie-ins | MWC, Pac-12 |
| Previous conference tie-ins |
Big West, MAC (1992–96) WAC (1997–1998) |
| Payout | US$1,350,000 |
| Sponsors | |
| Former names | |
|
Las Vegas Bowl (1992–1998)
EA Sports Las Vegas Bowl (1999) Las Vegas Bowl (2000) Sega Sports Las Vegas Bowl (2001–2002) Las Vegas Bowl (2003) Pioneer Purevision Las Vegas Bowl (2004–2006) Pioneer Las Vegas Bowl (2007–2008) Maaco Bowl Las Vegas (2009–2012) Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl (2013–2015) |
|
| 2016 matchup | |
| San Diego State vs. Houston (San Diego State 34–10) | |
The Las Vegas Bowl is an NCAA-sanctioned Division I-A post-season college football bowl game. It has been played annually at the 40,000-seat Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas, U.S. every December since 1992. The bowl is owned by ESPN Events.
As the Las Vegas Bowl was initially the replacement for the California Bowl, it inherited that bowl's tie-ins with the champions of the Big West Conference and the Mid-American Conference. These remained intact until 1996, after which the Big West's champion earned a berth in the Humanitarian Bowl while the MAC's champion was given a berth in the Motor City Bowl. 1997 through 1999 saw a team from the Western Athletic Conference face an at-large team, and the Mountain West Conference took over for the WAC for the 1999 and 2000 games (the 1999 game featured both WAC and Mountain West teams). Since 2001, the Mountain West and Pac-12 Conferences (originally known as the Pacific-10 Conference) have matched up in Las Vegas.
From 2001 until 2005, the second place team in the Mountain West was chosen to face the Pac-12. Beginning in 2006, after its contract with the Liberty Bowl expired, the Mountain West agreed to send its champion to the Las Vegas Bowl to face the Pac-12's 5th or 6th place team. From 2006 until 2013, the Mountain West would send a secondary team if the champion qualified for the Bowl Championship Series or, as per the rules of the Hawai'i Bowl, was Hawai'i. The 2016 game would have pitted the Pac-12's #6 team against the winner of the Mountain West Conference Football Championship Game, provided that the winner of the game does not automatically qualify for one of the College Football Playoff's six bowls as the highest-ranking member of the "Group of Five" (champions of the Mountain West, Sun Belt, American, or Mid-American Conferences, as well as the Conference USA champion comprise this group). However, since the Pac-12 only had six bowl eligible teams and two of them qualified for New Years Six bowls, the bowl elected to invite Houston Cougars of the American Athletic Conference instead of a Pac-12 team.
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