Location Detroit, Michigan Conference tie-ins Big Ten & ACC Stadium Ford Field | Operated 2014–present Payout US$1,200,000 | |
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Preceded by Little Caesars Pizza Bowl Latest champion Boston College Eagles football | ||
Boston college vs maryland quick lane bowl highlights 2016
The Quick Lane Bowl is a post-season college football bowl game certified by the NCAA that began play in the 2014 season. Backed by the Detroit Lions of the National Football League, the game features a bowl-eligible team from the Big Ten Conference competing against an opponent from the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Contents
The Quick Lane Bowl is played at Ford Field in Detroit as a de facto replacement for the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl, and inherited its traditional December 26 scheduling. Unlike its predecessor, which placed the 8th place team in the Big Ten against the Mid-American champion, the competing teams are selected by conference representatives and not based on final rankings. The Ford Motor Company serves as title sponsor of the game through its auto shop brand Quick Lane.
The inaugural game between the Rutgers Scarlet Knights and North Carolina Tar Heels was played on December 26, 2014, marking the first time the two teams had ever played each other in a bowl game.
History
Since 2002, Detroit's Ford Field had played host to the Motor City Bowl—later known as the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl for sponsorship reasons; a bowl game between the 8th placed team in the Big Ten Conference and the champion of the Mid-American Conference which was first played in 1997 at the Pontiac Silverdome. In May 2013, ESPN reported that the Detroit Lions were planning to organize a new Big Ten bowl game at Ford Field against an Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) opponent—Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany had expressed a desire to revamp the conference's lineup of bowl games for the 2014 season to keep them "fresh". In August 2013, the Lions officially confirmed the new, then-unnamed game, tentatively scheduled for December 30, 2014. The team had reached six-year deals with the Big Ten and ACC to provide tie-ins for the game; the teams playing in the bowl are to be picked by representatives from each participating conference.
The announcement of the Lions' bowl game, and the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl's loss of Ford Field as a venue, left the fate of the game—which had a relatively lower-profile matchup—in jeopardy. Detroit Lions president Tom Lewand remarked that "very few" markets could adequately support hosting two major bowl games. Organizers were open to the possibility of moving the game across the street to Comerica Park—home stadium of the Detroit Tigers, for 2014 as an outdoor game. Comerica Park, the Tigers, and game sponsor Little Caesars are all owned by Ilitch Holdings. However, these plans never came to fruition.
In August 2014, the Lions announced that the Ford Motor Company had acquired title sponsorship rights to the new Detroit bowl, now known as the Quick Lane Bowl—named for its auto shop brand Quick Lane. It was also confirmed that the inaugural game would inherit the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl's traditional date of December 26, 2014, and be televised by ESPN. In a statement to Crain's Detroit Business, Motor City Bowl co-founder Ken Hoffman confirmed that "there is no Pizza Bowl for 2014. We will have to see about the future", implying that the game has been cancelled indefinitely.
Radio
WJR-FM and WJR (AM) are the flagship stations for the Quick Lane Bowl Radio Network. Availability between the two to carry the game rotates depending on other Detroit area sporting events.