The Texas Bowl is a post-season NCAA-sanctioned Division I FBScollege footballbowl game first held in 2006 in Houston, Texas. The bowl replaced the defunct Houston Bowl, which played annually from 2000 to 2005, and before that the Bluebonnet Bowl, the first bowl game in Houston, played from 1959 through 1987. Since 2017, the game has been sponsored by Academy Sports + Outdoors and officially known as the Academy Sports + Outdoors Texas Bowl. The game was previous the AdvoCare V100 Texas Bowl from 2014 to 2016, with AdvoCare as the title sponsor. From 2011 to 2012, the game was sponsored by Meineke Car Care and officially known as the Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas.
History
Replacing the Houston Bowl
Speculation surfaced questioning the long-term survival of the former Houston Bowl. The three-year contract with EV1.net expired on December 31, 2005, leaving the bowl game without a title sponsor. A college football official told the Houston Chronicle that the bowl was in danger of ceasing operations, as a result of the game losing its title sponsor and because the Houston Bowl still owed roughly $600,000 to the Big 12 and Mountain West conferences following the 2005 game. However, the NCAA approved Lone Star Sports & Entertainment, a division of the Houston Texans, who also play in Reliant Stadium, to take over game management. In July 2006, the NFL Network acquired TV rights and naming rights to the bowl.
Texas Bowl introduction
The Texas Bowl name and logo were officially unveiled on August 10, 2006, at a press conference along with conference affiliations for the bowl spots. The Big 12, Big East and Conference USA will be affiliated with the game, as well as Texas Christian University of the Mountain West. The 2006 matchup featured teams from the Big 12 and Big East Conferences. On December 3, 2006, Rutgers accepted an invitation to play Kansas State in the inaugural Texas Bowl. "We're ecstatic about having Rutgers," Texas Bowl director David Brady said. "This is a top-15 team that was three yards away from a BCS game. We couldn't be happier to have them here." 2010 marked the eleventh consecutive year a bowl game has played in Houston, and the 40th year overall with a bowl game there. It was also announced on December 30, 2009, that ESPN Events would take over as part owner and operator of the game, while Lone Star Sports and Entertainment will maintain a stake in the bowl, and would be carried on ESPN.
Sponsors
On April 12, 2011, ESPN announced Meineke Car Care signed a three-year title sponsorship deal beginning in 2011, changing name of the bowl to the Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas. On February 12, 2014, it was announced that AdvoCare will be the title sponsor for the bowl game. That sponsorship concluded after the 2016 game. On November 15, 2017, Academy Sports + Outdoors became the new title sponsor of the bowl.
Conference tie-ins
On May 17, 2007, it was announced Conference USA would have a team in the 2007 Texas Bowl. The Texas Bowl has a rotating commitment with the Big East Conference and Conference USA for 2006-09 while the Big 12 Conference will have a team in all four of those games. In 2007, TCU took the place of the Big 12 team when Kansas and Oklahoma were put into the BCS, and Houston, a "home team," represented C-USA. The conferences would receive $612,500 each as per the rules of the agreements as usually, the Big East would have received $750,000 for playing and C-USA would have received a $500,000 stipend for their team playing.
Issues
According to Sports Illustrated, in 2008 the bowl required Western Michigan University to purchase 11,000 tickets at full price in order to accept the invitation to play in the bowl. The university was only able to sell 548 tickets at that price, forcing it to accept a $462,535 loss, before travel expenses, to pay for the privilege of playing in the bowl.
Game results
Rankings are based on the AP Poll prior to the game being played.
