PapaJohns.com Bowl
| Birmingham Bowl | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Stadium | Legion Field |
| Location | Birmingham, Alabama |
| Operated | 2006-present |
| Conference tie-ins |
The American, SEC Alternates: C-USA, MAC |
| Payout | US$1,950,000 (As of 2013[update]) |
| Sponsors | |
| Former names | |
|
Birmingham Bowl (2006, working title)
PapaJohns.com Bowl (2006–2010) BBVA Compass Bowl (2011–2014) |
|
| 2015 matchup | |
| Auburn vs. Memphis (Auburn 31–10) | |
| 2016 matchup | |
| USF vs. South Carolina (South Florida 46-39 [OT]) | |
The Birmingham Bowl is a post-season NCAA-sanctioned Division I-A college football bowl game approved in April 2006 and played annually at the 71,594-seat Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama. ESPN Regional Television (doing business as ESPN Plus, a subsidiary of ESPN) owns and manages the bowl's operations, sponsorships and marketing, including broadcast of the game on ESPN. The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) also provides marketing, management and game-day operations support.
From 2006 through 2010, the game was the PapaJohns.com Bowl, named after Papa John's Pizza, who became the title sponsor signing a multi-year agreement in November 2006. From 2011 through 2014, the game was the BBVA Compass Bowl, as it was sponsored by BBVA Compass, a subsidiary of Bilbao, Spain-based Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria which is based in Birmingham; their sponsorship was announced in November 2010. BBVA Compass declined to renew its sponsorship following the January 2014 game.
The bowl originally had a four-year agreement with Conference USA to match a representative of that conference against an opponent from the Big East Conference, but the bowl's officials later appealed to the NCAA for a recertification which was granted in late April 2008. In 2008 and 2009, the bowl featured the Southeastern Conference's ninth bowl-eligible team and a team from the Big East Conference.
The game currently features teams from the SEC and the American Athletic Conference. Should either of these conferences not fulfill their bowl commitments, a team from C-USA or the Mid-American Conference will take their place, provided it is bowl eligible. Otherwise, the game will choose an at-large team. This happened in 2008, when the SEC was unable to send a team; the bowl selected ACC team North Carolina State to face Rutgers from the Big East despite the fact that the bowl had an arrangement with the Sun Belt Conference at the time and it had at least one bowl-eligible team it could send.
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