The venue had been shifted to Atlantic City after the bowl was played for its initial five years outdoors in Philadelphia Municipal Stadium (later
John F. Kennedy Stadium), often in temperatures below freezing. The inaugural Liberty Bowl in 1959 saw
Penn State beat
Alabama by a score of 7–0 in front of 38,000 fans. But it was downhill from there, and fewer than 10,000 were in attendance to watch the
1963 edition between
Mississippi State and
NC State, with the organizers taking a loss of $40,000. The frigid temperatures at year's end in the Northeast led to the game being called the "Deep Freeze Bowl". Bud Dudley, organizer of the Liberty Bowl, was ready for a change and was receptive to an offer (including a $25,000 guarantee) from a group of Atlantic City businessmen who were trying to help revive the then-fading
Jersey Shore resort.
Artificial turf was not in use yet, and the playing surface was a
grass surface with two inches of
burlap underneath it on top of
concrete. Artificial lights were installed and kept running all day long to keep the grass growing. The organizers spent $16,000 on all of the field preparations for the game. To squeeze the game onto the floor of the convention hall, the
end zones at each side of the field were shortened to eight yards in depth from the regulation ten. In the 1964 postseason, the Liberty Bowl was one of just eight major bowl games. The
American Broadcasting Company (ABC) agreed to broadcast the game nationally and brought
Paul Christman,
Curt Gowdy, and
Jim McKay to announce the game, paying $95,000 for the rights to broadcast the first nationwide telecast of an indoor football game. ==Game summary==