| Fiesta Bowl News: |
| The Fiesta Bowl, now sponsored by Tostitos tortilla chips (a Frito-Lay product), is a United States college football game played annually since 1971. Originally, the game was hosted in Tempe, Arizona at Sun Devil Stadium where it remained until 2006. University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona is the current venue. Previous bowl game sponsors included Sunkist and IBM's OS/2 operating system.
In 1998 the Fiesta Bowl became part of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS), and prior to 2007 every four years (most recently in 2003) was the designee for the national championship game. |
| Event | Date | Tickets | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Fiesta Bowl
|
11:59 pm
|
University of Phoenix Stadium
|
| More Fiesta Bowl News: |
| A major breakthrough occurred in 1986 when the top two teams in the country, Miami and Penn State, agreed to play for the national championship in the Fiesta Bowl. At the time, the "big four" bowl games, the Cotton, Orange, Sugar, and Rose, had contracts with the major conferences whose champions were guaranteed selection. Both Miami and Penn State were independents at that time. As such, the Fiesta Bowl and the Florida Citrus Bowl, each free from the obligation of conference tie-ins, vied to host the Miami-Penn State matchup. The Fiesta Bowl won the bidding and the game was set to be played on January 2, a day after the "big four" bowls. The 1987 Fiesta Bowl was won by Penn State, 14-10 over Miami, and drew the largest television viewership of any game in the history of college football. Two years later, #1 Notre Dame played undefeated #3 West Virginia for the national championship at the Fiesta Bowl. By this time, the Fiesta Bowl's ability to stage games with national championship implications propelled it to major-bowl status in the minds of college football fans, replacing the Cotton Bowl as a member of the bowl season's "big four." |