Gator Bowl At Jacksonville Municipal Stadium

Originating in 1946, the Gator Bowl is one of the oldest college bowl games that is played every year at the Jacksonville Municipal Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida. Until the early nineties, the game was played at the Gator Bowl Stadium. However, after the stadium was partially demolished during the construction of the ALLTEL stadium in 1993, the game was shifted to Gainesville, Florida for a year and later from 1996, the game has been regularly held at the ALLTEL stadium.

Sponsored by Konica Minolta, the Gator Bowl is presently known as the Konica Minolta Gator Bowl. From 1996-2006, it had a different name and was known as the Toyota Gator Bowl after its sponsor, Toyota. The idea of the game was originally conceived by Charles Hilty, Sr. according to statistics provided by The Big Bowl Football Guide by Anthony C DiMarco. Along with Ray McCarthy, Maurice Cherry and W.C. Ivey, Hilty Sr. put in $10,000 to organize the first game. After struggling to draw sufficient audience in its initial years, the game managed to garner a regular attendance of 60,000 – 70,000 by the 1970s.

From 1946-1952, the Gator Bowl included a team from the Southern Conference against an at-large opponent. Post 1953, the participation of a Southeastern Conference team became an almost regular feature of the game and up till the mid seventies, at least one SEC team appeared in 20 out of the 24 games. This trend continued till the mid nineties, when a team from the southeastern part of the country regularly featured in the games.

Starting from 1996, Gator Bowl game started hosting the second-place ACC against the second-place Big East team for a decade. From 2007, it began hosting the third place ACC team against a team from the Big East, Big 12 or the Notre Dame in order to replace Big Easts position in the game.

Gator Bowl entered into a contract with CBS Sports for telecasting their games on television in 2007. Consequently, the payout for each team increase to $2.5 million. Prior to their CBS contract, the game was being broadcast during the prime time slot by ABC.

Although the Gator Bowl is quite a significant sporting event within Jacksonville, it has been in the news for wrong reasons also. In 1963, 22 patrons of Hotel Roosevelt lost their lives after a fire broke out in the hotel while a post-gator Bowl party was being celebrated I the ballroom. Later on, however, it was found out that the party was not the cause of the fire. Nonetheless despite all these mishaps the Gator Bowl continues to thrill audiences who flock to see the sport every year. Wikipedia