The Gasparilla Bowl is the third college
bowl game to be played in the
Tampa Bay area. The first was the
Cigar Bowl, which was played in Tampa from 1947 to 1954, and the second was the
ReliaQuest Bowl, which has been held in Tampa since 1986 and was known as the Outback Bowl for over 20 years. In 2008, the NCAA's Postseason Football Licensing Subcommittee approved a yet-to-be-named bowl game to be owned by ESPN and played at
Tropicana Field after the
2008 college football season. Telecom company
magicJack signed on as the title sponsor, and the
inaugural magicJack St. Petersburg Bowl was played on December 20, 2008, between
South Florida and
Memphis, with the
Bulls winning 41–14 behind Most Outstanding Player quarterback
Matt Grothe. For the
2009 game, restaurant chain
Beef O'Brady's took over as presenting sponsor. The game became known as '''St. Petersburg Bowl Presented by Beef O'Brady's''' in December 2009 after the restaurant chain obtained a title sponsorship.
Rutgers defeated
UCF 45–24. In 2010, the bowl's name was shortened to the '''Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl'''.
Southern Miss faced
Louisville; it was the 29th meeting between former
Conference USA rivals. Louisville rallied from a 14-point deficit to win their sixth contest in a row against Southern Miss. Beef 'O' Brady's stopped sponsoring the bowl after the 2013 edition. On April 2, 2015, after one year of sponsorship, BitPay declined to renew sponsorship of the game, and it was again called the St. Petersburg Bowl for the next two years. On August 23, 2017, Bad Boy Mowers signed a three-year deal to become the official title sponsor of the game, which was rebranded as the
Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl, after Tampa's
Gasparilla Pirate Festival. The sponsorship ended after the 2019 game. On October 20, 2020,
Union Home Mortgage signed on as title sponsor of the bowl, making it the
Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl. The 2020 edition of the bowl was set to matchup
South Carolina and
UAB. However, on December 22, South Carolina had to withdraw from the bowl due to
COVID-19 issues within their program.
Conference tie-ins The first three editions of the bowl featured teams from
C-USA and the
Big East. The
American Athletic Conference (AAC) succeeded the Big East after 2013. The bowl entered a six-year agreement with the
ACC for the 2014 to 2019 seasons; the ACC would provide a team in 2014 and 2016, and would be an alternate for the other seasons. Ultimately, the only ACC team to play in the bowl during this period was
NC State in 2014. Four of the five games from 2015 through 2019 featured a matchup between AAC and C-USA teams. The exception was 2016, when an overall lack of bowl-eligible teams yielded some "odd matchups"; the bowl's 2016 edition featured teams from the
MAC and
SEC. As of the 2020 football season, the bowl has a large set of tie-ins, such that it could feature teams from eight different conferences as well as two
independent programs: • from the
Power Five conferences: ACC, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC • from the
Group of Five conferences: AAC, C-USA, MAC, MWC • independent programs:
Army,
BYU Note: since 2020, both Army and BYU have joined conferences.
Stadium The bowl has been played at
Raymond James Stadium in Tampa since the 2018 edition. The first ten games were played at
Tropicana Field in
St. Petersburg. "The Trop" is the home
ballpark of the
Tampa Bay Rays of MLB, and when it was first established, the then-St. Pete Bowl was one of several new college bowl games to be played in baseball venues. At Tropicana Field, the football
gridiron was situated down the right field line from near home plate to the outfield wall with just enough room for the
endzones. ==Game results==