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In North America, a bowl game is one of a number of post-season college football games that are primarily played by teams belonging to the NCAA's Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The term "bowl" originated from the Rose Bowl stadium, site of the first post-season college football games. The Rose Bowl Stadium, in turn, takes its name and bowl-shaped design from the Yale Bowl, the prototype of many football stadiums in the United States. The names of the National Football League (NFL)'s "Super Bowl" and "Pro Bowl" are references to college football bowl games. Prior to 2002, bowl game statistics were not included in players' career totals and the games were mostly considered to be exhibition games involving a payout to participating teams, which had to meet strict eligibility requirements. The number of bowl games has grown in recent years, climbing to 39 team-competitive games starting in 2014–15. The increase in games allows virtually every team with a non-losing record to play in a bowl game. With the increase to 39 bowl games, the NCAA has eased the bowl eligibility rules to make teams with a losing record fully eligible to participate without the need to apply for a waiver. The term "bowl" has become almost synonymous with any major American football event, generally collegiate football with some significant exceptions (such as the Super Bowl). Two examples are the Egg Bowl, the name of the annual matchup between the Mississippi State Bulldogs and the Ole Miss Rebels, and the Iron Bowl, a nickname given to the annual game between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Auburn Tigers. The use of the term has crossed over into professional and collegiate Canadian football. A notable example is the annual Banjo Bowl between the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League (CFL). Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) plays two semi-final "bowl games" before the Vanier Cup national championship game. The Uteck Bowl is normally played between the Atlantic Division Champion and the champion from another division. It is usually held at the venue of the easternmost team playing in the semi-finals. The Mitchell Bowl is played at the venue of the westernmost team participating in the semi-finals. ==History== The history of the bowl game began with the 1902 Tournament East-West football game, sponsored by the Tournament of Roses Association between Michigan and Stanford, a game which Michigan won 49-0. The Tournament of Roses eventually sponsored an annual contest starting with the 1916 Tournament East-West Football Game. With the 1923 Rose Bowl it began to be played at the newly completed Rose Bowl stadium, and thus the contest itself became known as the Rose Bowl game. The name "bowl" to describe the games thus comes from the Rose Bowl stadium. Other cities saw the promotional value for tourism that the Tournament of Roses parade and Rose Bowl carried and began to develop their own regional festivals which included college football games. The label "bowl" was attached to the festival name, even though the games were not always played in bowl-shaped stadiums. The historic timing of bowl games, around the new year, is the result of two factors—warm climate and ease of travel. The original bowls began in warm climates such as Southern California, Louisiana, Florida and Texas as a way to promote the area for tourism and business. Since commercial air travel was either non-existent or very limited, the games were scheduled well after the end of the regular season to allow fans to travel to the game site.〔Frank Deford, (The earmarks of athletics: Sheer lunacy of bowl games defies all traditional logic ), SportsIllustrated.com, November 29, 2006.〕 While modern travel is more convenient, all but 5 of 35 bowl games (as of 2013-14) are still located in cities at or below approximately 36° N. Currently, college football bowl games are played from mid-December to early January. As the number of bowl games has increased, the number of games a team would need to win to be invited to a bowl game has decreased. With a 12-game schedule, a team may have six wins and be invited to a bowl game. As of the completion of the 2012 season, the University of Alabama has played in more bowl games than any other school, with 60 appearances. Alabama also holds the record for most bowl victories with 34. The Nebraska Cornhuskers hold the record for longest streak of consecutive bowl game appearances at 35 straight (1969–2005). The longest active streak is Florida State with 33.〔http://www.cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/bowls/current_consecutive.php〕 The Rose Bowl was the only major college bowl game in 1930. By 1940, there were five major college bowl games: the Rose Bowl, the Sugar Bowl (1935), the Cotton Bowl Classic (1937), the Orange Bowl (1935), and the Sun Bowl (1935). By 1950, the number had increased to eight games. In 1960 there were still eight major college bowl games, but by 1970 the number had increased again, to 11 games. The number continued to increase, to 15 games in 1980, to 19 games in 1990, 25 games in the year 2000 and , 35 games in total. Up until around the 1950s, games were played solely on New Years Day, with the only major exception being the holiday occurring on a Sunday. In the late 1950s, more bowl games began playing their games earlier in December. Also bowl games began to be set in cities which were not thought of as winter vacation destinations due to their colder climates. The attendance of 106,869 for the 1973 Rose Bowl set the Rose Bowl Stadium record, as well as the NCAA bowl game attendance record.〔''UCLA Football - 2007 UCLA Football (Media Guide)''. UCLA Athletic Department (2007), page 165 (PDF copy available at www.uclabruins.com)〕〔( 2002 NCAA Records book - Attendance Records ) page 494 (PDF)〕 The Rose Bowl stadium still is the largest capacity stadium and the Rose Bowl game has the highest attendance for post season bowl games. In the 1990s, many bowl games began to modify or abandon their traditional names in favor of selling naming rights. While some include the traditional name in some form (e.g. the ''Rose Bowl Game presented by Vizio''), others have totally eliminated their traditional name in favor of solely using their corporate sponsor's name (e.g. the former ''Citrus Bowl'' became the ''Capital One Bowl'' for some time after the financial services company Capital One bought the naming rights). Prior to 1992 most bowls had strict agreements with certain conferences. For example, the Rose Bowl traditionally invited the champions of the Pac-10 and the Big Ten conferences. The Sugar Bowl invited the SEC champion and the Orange Bowl hosted the Big 8 conference champion. These conference tie-ins led to situations where the top-ranked teams in the country could not play each other in a bowl game. The national championship was decided after the bowls, solely by voters for various media polls, who tried to decide which team was best, sometimes based on wins against far inferior teams. As a result, there could be multiple championship titles and no single champion. This led to the term "Mythical National Championship," which is still used to describe high school national champions, since high school sports have state championship tournaments but not national. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bowl game」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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