In 1890,
Pasadena, California, held its first
Tournament of Roses Parade to showcase the city's mild weather compared to the harsh winters in northern cities. As one of the organizers said: "In
New York, people are buried in snow. Here, our flowers are blooming and our oranges are about to bear [fruit]. Let's hold a festival to tell the world about our paradise." In
1902, the annual festival was enhanced by adding a
football game. vs.
Oklahoma in
2004 In 1926, leaders in
Miami, Florida, decided to do the same with a "Fiesta of the American Tropics" that was centered around a New Year's Day football game. Although a second "Fiesta" was never held, Miami leaders later revived the idea with the "Palm Festival" (with the slogan "Have a Green Christmas in Miami"). The football game and associated festivities of the Palm Festival were soon named the "
Orange Bowl." In
New Orleans, Louisiana, the idea of a New Year's Day football game was first presented in 1927 by Colonel
James M. Thomson, publisher of the
New Orleans Item, and Sports Editor
Fred Digby. Every year thereafter, Digby repeated calls for action, and even came up with the name "Sugar Bowl" for his proposed football game. By 1935, enough support had been garnered for the first Sugar Bowl. The game was played in
Tulane Stadium, which had been built in 1926 on Tulane University's campus (before 1871, Tulane's campus was
Paul Foucher's plantation, where Foucher's father-in-law,
Etienne de Bore, had first granulated sugar from
cane syrup). Warren V. Miller, the first president of the New Orleans Mid-Winter Sports Association, guided the Sugar Bowl through its difficult formative years of 1934 and 1935. An unusual 2–0 score marked the
1942 Sugar Bowl, in which the sole scoring play was a safety. In January 1956,
Bobby Grier became the first black player to participate in the Sugar Bowl. He is also regarded as the first black player to compete at a bowl game in the
Deep South, though others had played in bowls elsewhere, such as
Wallace Triplett in the
1948 Cotton Bowl Classic in Dallas. Grier's team, the Pittsburgh Panthers, was set to play against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. However, Georgia's governor
Marvin Griffin beseeched Georgia Tech to not participate in this racially integrated game. Griffin was widely criticized by news media leading up to the game, and protests were held at his mansion by Georgia Tech students. Despite the governor's objections, Georgia Tech's president
Blake R. Van Leer upheld the contract after he threatened to resign and the board of regents voted in his favor to compete in the bowl. In the game's first quarter, a pass interference call against Grier ultimately resulted in Yellow Jackets' 7–0 victory. Grier stated that he has mostly positive memories about the experience, including the support from teammates and letters from all over the world. In November
1967,
Army's success on the field (then at 7–1) made them a strong candidate to be selected for the
1968 game. However, Pentagon officials, in the midst of the
Vietnam War, refused to allow the team to play what would have been the academy's first bowl game ever—citing the "heavy demands on the players' time" as well as an emphasis on football being "not consistent with the academy's basic mission: to produce career Army officers." in January
2005 Tulane Stadium hosted through December
1974, and it has since been at the
Superdome (except
2006). For the
1972 season, the game was moved to New Year's Eve night; which lasted for four editions, returning to New Year's Day in January
1977. The last time it was played on natural grass was in January
1971. Compared to most bowl games, the Sugar Bowl has had steady
naming rights sponsorship. Its first corporate title sponsor was
USF&G Financial Services from 1987 to 1995, then
Finnish mobile phone manufacturer
Nokia from 1995 to 2006. In March 2006,
Allstate Insurance was announced as the new title sponsor, and has continued to sponsor the game since.
ABC Sports televised the game from 1969 through 2006.
Fox Sports televised the game from 2007 to 2010 as part of its contract with the BCS.
ESPN started airing the game with the 2010–11 season, after outbidding Fox for the broadcasting rights. The
2006 game was relocated to the
Georgia Dome in
Atlanta, Georgia, because of the extensive damage the Superdome suffered as a result of
Hurricane Katrina. Big East Champion West Virginia went on to beat SEC champion Georgia in the game, 38–35. It returned to the refurbished Superdome in
2007. The payout for the 2006 game was $14–17 million per participating team. According to
Sports Illustrated, the 2007 salary for Sugar Bowl CEO Paul Hoolahan was $607,500. Prior to the
BCS, the game traditionally hosted the
Southeastern Conference (SEC) champion against a top-tier at-large opponent. This was formalized in 1975, when the SEC champion was granted an automatic bid to the Sugar Bowl starting with the end of the 1976 season. This continued throughout the time of the
Bowl Coalition, a precursor to the BCS. However, the Sugar Bowl agreed to release the SEC champion if necessary to force a national championship game. Under this format, the Sugar Bowl hosted the first Bowl Coalition national championship game, when SEC champion Alabama upended
Miami at the end of the 1992 season. When the Bowl Coalition became the
Bowl Alliance at the start of the 1995 season, the Sugar Bowl would still release the SEC champion to go to the national championship game if they were ranked in the top two in the nation. Under the now-defunct BCS format, the Sugar Bowl continued to host the SEC champion against a top-tier at-large opponent, unless the SEC champion went to the
BCS National Championship Game. When this happened, the Sugar Bowl usually selected the highest-ranked SEC team still available in the BCS pool. The SEC champion played for the national championship in every one of the eight final editions of the BCS (2006–2013). The Sugar Bowl maintains an archive of past programs, images, newsreels, and other materials. The archive, originally housed in the Superdome, survived Hurricane Katrina, but a more secure home was needed. During the summer of 2007, the Sugar Bowl donated its materials to
The Historic New Orleans Collection, designating it the permanent home of its archive.
Ohio State vacated its
2011 Sugar Bowl victory over
Arkansas in response to
NCAA allegations over a memorabilia-for-cash scandal. The
2012 game, pitting the
Michigan Wolverines against the
Virginia Tech Hokies, was the first Sugar Bowl since 2000—and only the sixth since World War II—without an SEC team. Both of the SEC's BCS participants,
Alabama and
LSU, played in the
National Championship Game (in the Superdome), and under BCS rules only two teams per conference were eligible for BCS bowls. In May 2012, the
Big 12 and SEC announced plans to create a new bowl game, the "Champions Bowl," that would play host to the champions of those two conferences. That November, it was officially announced that the Champions Bowl had been awarded to New Orleans under a 12-year contract beginning in 2015, and would retain the Sugar Bowl name (stating that "Champions Bowl" was only a working title). In addition, it was announced that the Sugar Bowl would host one of two national semi-final games every three seasons (in the 2014, 2017, 2020, and 2023 seasons) as part of the new
College Football Playoff system replacing the BCS. The game for the 2022 season was moved to December 31, 2022 with a noon ET kickoff; out of respect to the
NFL, no bowl games are played on January 1 if it falls on a Sunday, while broadcaster ESPN is also committed to airing
Monday Night Football. It was only the sixth edition of the game played on New Year's Eve. The
Washington Huskies, by virtue of being ranked #2 in the CFP rankings at the end of the
2023 season, became the first
Pac-12 team to play in the Sugar Bowl, where they faced #3
Texas in a winning effort,
37–31. ==Game results==