The annual college football bowl game in St. Petersburg has a new sponsor.
It was announced today that the game will now be known as the Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl for the next four years after a new partnership deal was agreed to between BitPay and ESPN Events.
The bowl announced the name change today, replacing former sponsor Beef O’Brady’s.
Attention College #Football Fans! We are officially the Bitcoin St.Petersburg Bowl! #btcbowl @BitPay pic.twitter.com/A3GqZG9MdA
— Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl (@GasparillaBowl) June 18, 2014
This year’s game will be held on December 26 at Tropicana Field and will be live on ESPN.
The bowl game features teams from the AAC (formerly Big East) against either the ACC or Conference USA.
If one of those conferences doesn’t have enough bowl eligible teams, then the Mid-Atlantic or Sun Belt Conference are eligible to send a team.
The bowl series began in 2008 and was originally known as the magicjack St. Petersburg Bowl. Beef O’Brady’s took over sponsorship in 2009 and were the name sponsor for each of the last five seasons.
Perhaps fittingly, USF won the inaugural game as they beat Memphis 41-14. The full bowl history is as follows:
The Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl is one of two bowl games held in the Bay area. The Outback Bowl is held annually on New Years Day, as long as it doesn’t fall on a Sunday, in which case the game is moved to the Monday. Played at Raymond James Stadium, the matchup features a team from the Big 10 and SEC.