Stadium Mercedes-Benz Stadium Previous stadiums Georgia Dome (2015–16) Conference tie-ins MEAC, SWAC | Location Atlanta, Georgia Operated 2015–present | |
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Payout US$2,000,000
($1M Per conference) | ||
The Celebration Bowl is a post-season college football bowl game that began play in the 2015 season. The game will be played at Atlanta's Mercedes-Benz Stadium (the first two were at the Georgia Dome) between the champions of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference and the Southwestern Athletic Conference—the two prominent conferences of Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in NCAA Division I. It serves as a de facto national championship of Black college football and is the only active bowl game to feature teams from the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS).
The game is a successor to two previous bowl games between the MEAC and SWAC, the Pelican Bowl and Heritage Bowl. The game is organized by ESPN Events, which also runs the MEAC/SWAC Challenge, the annual interconference game between the two conferences, held over Labor Day weekend in Orlando, Florida. Because the Celebration Bowl takes place during the FCS playoff tournament, neither the SWAC nor the MEAC can send their champion to the tournament; as it is, the SWAC's regular season already extended too late into the year for its teams to qualify before the bowl was established.