Armed Forces Bowl

Armed Forces Bowl
Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl
Stadium	Amon G. Carter Stadium
Location	Fort Worth, Texas
Previous stadiums	Gerald J. Ford Stadium (2010–2011)
Previous locations	University Park, Texas (2010–2011)
Operated	2003–present
Conference tie-ins	American (2014, 2018) MWC (2015, 2019) Army (2014, 2017) Big Ten (2015, 2017, 2019) Big XII (2016, 2018) Navy (2016)
Payout	US$1,200,000 (As of 2011)[1]
Sponsors
PlainsCapital Bank (2003–2004) Bell Helicopter (2006–2013) Lockheed Martin (2014–present)
Former names
PlainsCapital Fort Worth Bowl (2003–2004) Fort Worth Bowl (2005) Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl (2006–2013)
December 2015 matchup
Houston vs. Pittsburgh (Houston 35–34)
January 2015 matchup
California vs. Air Force Falcons (California 55–36)

The Armed Forces Bowl (officially the Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl for sponsorship purposes) is an annual postseason college football bowl game.

The contest is one of 11 bowls produced by ESPN Regional Television (a/k/a ESPN Plus) and has been televised annually on ESPN since its inception. Armed Forces Insurance is the official Insurance Partner of the Armed Forces Bowl and has sponsored the Great American Patriot Award, presented at halftime at the Bowl, since 2008.

The game is played in the 44,008-seat Amon G. Carter Stadium on the campus of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas, featuring teams from a variety of collegiate football conferences; in addition, the D-I independent United States Military Academy (Army) is also eligible to participate.

History

The bowl game was inaugurated in 2003 as PlainsCapital Fort Worth Bowl, reflecting the sponsorship of PlainsCapital Bank. The bank's sponsorship ended in 2004, and the 2005 game was without corporate sponsorship.

In 2006, Fort Worth based Bell Helicopter Textron took over sponsorship, and thus the game became officially known as the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl. The Bell sponsorship ended in 2013. During this time, the 2010 and 2011 Armed Forces Bowl were held at Gerald J. Ford Stadium on the campus of Southern Methodist University in the Dallas enclave of University Park, while Amon G. Carter Stadium was undergoing a major renovation. The game returned to Amon Carter Stadium in Fort Worth in 2012 after construction on that stadium was completed.

Originally Alltel was to assume the title sponsorship and naming rights to the game beginning in 2014, which would have been titled the Alltel Wireless Bowl to promote its mobile division, but the deal fell through. Instead, Lockheed Martin became the game's sponsor. The company has a major presence in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex: the company's Lockheed Martin Aeronautics division is based in Fort Worth while its Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control division is based in nearby Grand Prairie, Texas.

Conference Tie-Ins

The bowl's partnership with the Big 12 Conference ended with the 2005 season. From the 2006 through the 2009 playings of the game the Mountain West Conference was signed to provide a team to face either a team from the Pacific-10 Conference or Conference USA (depending on the year; Pac-10 teams would play in odd number years while C-USA teams would play in even numbered years). As such, the 2006 and 2008 games featured Conference USA teams Tulsa and Houston, respectively, whereas California represented the Pac-10 in 2007. The Pac-10 was unable to send a representative to the game in 2009, so Conference USA sent Houston to the game for a second consecutive year. In 2010, since the Mountain West did not have enough eligible teams and Army was bowl eligible, they played SMU in the Armed Forces Bowl.

Following the 2013 football season, the Armed Forces Bowl signed multi-year agreements with the American Athletic Conference, Big Ten Conference, Big 12 Conference, Mountain West Conference, Army and Navy to set bowl match-ups for the next six seasons (Navy would later join the American Athletic Conference).

Future Armed Forces Bowl matchups

Game results

Former logo of the Armed Forces Bowl

MVPs

Most appearances

Air Force Falcons quarterback Shea Smith in the 2007 Armed Forces Bowl 2007.

Results by conference

Notes

1. ↑ "Schools to Receive Combined Team Payout of $281.8 Million for 2011–12 Bowl Season" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-06-07. 
2. 1 2 Received a bid because the Big 12 did not have enough bowl-eligible teams to fill all of its allotted bowl slots.
3. ↑ Received a bid because the Big 10 did not have enough bowl-eligible teams to fill all of its allotted bowl slots.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Armed Forces Bowl.

• Official website