More Orange Bowl Information

The college football bowl season has only a few truly longtime star performers, but certainly the Orange Bowl is among them. Once the Rose Bowl established itself on the West Coast, it was no surprise that other groups would follow the formula. The first city to take on the challenge of hosting a major bowl game was Miami, in January of 1933, and in 1935, their game became the Orange Bowl.

Miami inaugurated its football game as part of the Miami Palm Festival, and it was such a hit that it earned its own stadium, named the Orange Bowl to match the game and the Rose Bowl, for the 1938 spectacular. As the second-oldest bowl game, as well as the second-most-recognized football stadium for college play, the Orange Bowl developed a fan base willing to buy as many tickets as there were seats.

In a fairly obvious move designed to sell local tickets, the Orange Bowl officially began with the 1935 appearance of the University of Miami (Florida), though they lost 26-0 to Bucknell. Southern schools figured in all of the early games, but it was not until 1946 that another Florida team appeared, when Miami University beat Holy Cross, 13-6.